Palack University Olomouc

AS A COMMUNICATIVE STRATEGY AND LANGUAGE MANIFESTATION

(A CROSS-CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE)

Part One

Olomouc 2004

Recenzenti:

prof. PhDr. Jaroslav Machek, CSc.

prof. PhDr. Josef Hladk, CSc.

Silvie Vlkov, 2004

ISBN 80-244-0961-5

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
During the time I have been living with Politeness as a research topic,
many people have become involved with my interest and helped me in different
ways. I owe all of them a great debt of gratitude. First to Doc. PhDr. Dagmar
Knittlov, who supervised the preparation of my Ph.D. thesis, helped me shape
my ideas and had faith in my work when I was losing mine. Thanks belong to
Professor PhDr. Jaroslav Machek, the director of the Ph.D. program in the
Dept. of English and American Studies, who not only provided intellectual
support but who has always been willing to set his own work aside and talk
about ours. Last but not least, my thanks belong to Professor PhDr. Josef
Hladk from Masaryk University Brno, whose critical comments provided
inspiration at a crucial time.
The great contribution of my family was love and care

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abbreviations and Symbols ................................................................... 11
Introduction............................................................................................. 13
0.1 Theoretical Framework.................................................................. 13
0.2 Narrowing the Scope....................................................................... 19
0.3 Content and Organisation.............................................................. 23
0.4 Data .................................................................................................. 24
Chapter One: POLITENESS: SETTING THE SCENE ..................... 27
1.1 Perception of Politeness .................................................................. 27
1.1.0 Positive vs. Negative Politeness ............................................ 29
1.1.1 Politeness and Tact ................................................................ 30
1.1.2 Linguistic Politeness ............................................................. 31
1.1.2.1 Routinised Nature of Linguistic Politeness .............. 33
1.1.3 Indirectness and Politeness .................................................... 34
1.1.4 Informality and Politeness ..................................................... 36
1.2 Working Definition of Politeness .................................................. 37
1.3 Rules or Maxims?............................................................................ 38
1.3.1 R. Lakoffs Approach ............................................................ 39
1.3.2 Brown and Levinsons Standpoint......................................... 41
1.3.3 D. Tannens Arguments.......................................................... 43
1.3.4 F. Coulmas Suggestion ......................................................... 43
1.3.5 Concluding Remarks ............................................................. 43
1.4 Cross-cultural Perspective ............................................................. 44
1.4.1 Universality of Politeness ...................................................... 45
1.4.2 Politeness across Cultures...................................................... 47
1.4.2.1 Linguistic Etiquette .................................................. 49
1.5 An Interplay of Strategies .............................................................. 53
1.5.1 Verbal and Non-Verbal Communication ............................... 53
1.5.2 Silence as a Communicative Strategy.................................... 55

Chapter Two: POLITENESS AND SOCIAL DEIXIS ........................ 59

2.0 Introduction .................................................................................. 59
2.1 Language as Social Semiotic .......................................................... 60
2.2 Social Deixis .................................................................................. 61
2.2.1 Semantics of Power and Solidarity........................................ 62
2.2.2 Dominance and Distance ....................................................... 64
2.2.3 Politeness in Addressing ........................................................ 65
2.2.4 Rules of Address .................................................................... 65
2.2.5 Forms of Address and Configurations ................................... 66
2.2.5.1 Forms........................................................................ 66
2.2.5.2 Configurations .......................................................... 67
2.2.5.3 Greetings and Addresses........................................... 71
2.2.5.4 Seeking Co-operation: Vocatives.............................. 72
2.2.6 Data........................................................................................ 75
2.2.6.1 Characterising the Data ............................................ 76
2.2.6.2 Case Study ................................................................ 78
2.2.6.2.1 Sample One.............................................. 78
2.2.6.2.2 Sample Two ............................................. 98
2.2.6.2.3 Sample Three ........................................ 104
2.2.6.3 Conclusion to Samples 13 .................................... 117
Chapter Three: POLITENESS IN APOLOGISING ......................... 119
3.0 Introduction................................................................................... 119
3.1 Apologies in Speech Act Theory (SAT) tradition
and development ........................................................................... 120
3.1.1 Geis extention of SAT model known as DSAT
(Dynamic Speech Act Theory) ............................................ 120
3.1.2 Bach and Harnishs approach .............................................. 122
3.1.3 Blum-Kulka et al. and their IFID-theory .......................... 122
3.2 Apologies in Conversational Analysis (CA) strategic models ... 124
3.2.1 Strategic approach state of art........................................... 126
3.2.1.1 The conception of B. Fraser .................................. 127
3.2.1.2 F. Coulmas framework .......................................... 128
3.2.1.3 Apology as a continuum......................................... 130
3.2.2 Summing up......................................................................... 131

3.3 Corpus-based data ........................................................................ 132

3.3.1 Expectations......................................................................... 132
3.3.2 Characterising the data ........................................................ 133
3.3.3 Procedure ............................................................................. 134
3.3.4 Corpus-based results with illustrative samples.................... 136
3.3.5 Apologies in cross-cultural perspective .............................. 148
Chapter Four: POLITENESS IN SECOND LANGUAGE
ACQUISITION AN OUTLINE ........................................................ 151
4.1 State of the art ............................................................................... 151
4.2 Implications for second language acquisition............................. 157
Concluding remarks ............................................................................. 159
Resum .................................................................................................. 165
References ............................................................................................. 171
List of Tables and Figures .................................................................... 179

Abbreviations and Symbols

(A)
(I)
(M)
AH
Bf
BH
C
CA
CC
Cf
CN
(D)
d
DSAT
E
e
Ff
FN
FTA
IFID
LLC
LN
Lo
M
n
NN
(P)
(R)
RH
s
S
SAT
SLA
T (form)
T
TESOL
TW
V (form)

Authentic Example
Intuitive Example
Modified Example
Addressee Honorifics
Bound Form
Bystander Honorifics
Caller
Conversational Analysis
Collins Cobuild
Configurations of Free and Bound Forms
Common Name
Distance
Distance Semantics
Dynamic Speech Act Theory
Endearment
Evaluative
Free Form
First Name
Face Threatening Act
Illocutionary Force Indicating Device
London Lund Corpus
Last Name
Location
Moderator
Neutral
No Name
Power
Ranking
Referent Honorifics
Solidarity Semantics
Surname
Speech Act Theory
Second Language Acquisition
Familiar forms of address
Title
Teaching English as a Second or Other Language
Tennessee Williams
Polite forms of address

11

INTRODUCTION
0.1

Theoretical Framework

Human speech as a hierarchically structured human activity is multifaceted

in nature and so are the mechanisms initiating its usage.
The aim of the present study1 is to map the domain of linguistic politeness,
which in the traditional models of language analysis has been partly neglected
(with more attention paid to the Saussurian concept of langue rather than the
phenomena manifested in parole), partly simplified (by equating politeness
with forms of addressing and honorifics only), or just taken for granted (as
the flash and blood of our everyday encounters) or, rather sporadically (in
the theoretical studies available), perceived negatively, i.e. as an absence of
its manifestation, i.e. as a violation of generally shared empirical principles
of good manners.
When approached as a linguistic etiquette (with various culture-bound
degrees of normativity and/or appropriateness), politeness was mostly dealt
with as a phenomenon belonging to the level of society, which endorses
its normative constraints on each individual (GU,1990:242), and a set of
moral maxims subsumed under a unifying Politiness Principle (cf. LEECH,
1983) was primarily associated with a limited set of languages (cf. e.g. the
Japanese concept or the Englo-Saxon tradition), stressing the peculiarity and
uniqueness of the respective languages (cf. the theory of Japaneseness based
on the findings about the honorific system in the Japanese language).
It is only in recent years that the concept of politeness has become
a major issue in linguistics, as evident from the series of publications
following BROWN & LEVINSONs (1978) original essay and its extended
version from 1987. (For a useful survey of published works on language and
politeness see DUFON, M. et al., 1994. A critical state-of-the-art review of
core politeness theories by Gino EELEN was published in 2001).
The subcategorization of the concept of politeness into positive politeness
and negative politeness, as advocated by BROWN & LEVINSON (1987,
see section 1.1.0 for details), however, has been accepted either with
mixed feelings (cf. the application in SIFIANOU, 1992) or with apparent
1

This is a revised (updated and extended) version of my Ph.D. thesis defended in

2001 at Palacky University in Olomouc (Philosophical Faculty).

13

criticism aimed at the universal validity of those cross-cultural constants

(WIERZBICKA, 1991).
In modern theories, the interdisciplinary perspective contributes to
the principle-controlled rather than purely normative status of the devices
associated with politeness, and the universal principles of their usage are
looked upon as weak universals, being socio- and culture-specific, reflecting
the norms and strategies prioritised by a given community of language users.
Thus, besides normativity also the optional nature of part of politeness
manifestations has been taken into view reflecting the language users option
of how to communicate and what to achieve by his/her locution.
Politeness is looked upon as a part of speakers communicative
competence into which individuals have been socialised ( for HALLIDAYs,
1978 conception of language as social semiotic see discussion in section
2.1).
This is also the standpoint reflected in the present study, with all the
consequences for the cross-language comparison of the phenomena of
politeness (with illustrative samples of the English-Czech interface at
relevant places of this study).
In this book, as explained in the sections bellow, attention will be
paid to selected manifestations of politeness looked upon as a network
of communicative strategies used by interlocutors in the opening, medial
and closing phases of interaction, as well as to politeness looked upon as
a language manifestation of those strategies, finding its ways of expression
at various levels of language representation and in various configurations of
language devices used to signal various degrees of politeness.
Politeness 1 and Politeness 2
The multifaceted nature of the phenomenon of politeness was probably
the reason why Gino EELEN (2001:32ff.) suggested to make a distinction
between Politeness 1, i.e. politeness as an everyday concept (= an aspect of
communicative interaction, or simply the way people talk about politeness
and provide account of politeness), which roughly correspondsto the
previously mentioned politeness as a network of communicative strategies
+ politeness as a language manifestation of those strategies as opposed
to Politeness 2, interpreted as a scientific conceptualization of the social
phenomenon of politeness (op. cit. p. 43). Thus, while Politeness 1 is
referred to by the author as the action-related side of politeness, Politeness
2 represents its conceptual side.

14

The focus in this study is on linguistic politeness (R.WATTS, 1989),

i.e. mostly on EELENs Politeness 1, seen as a consequence of the above
mentioned communicative strategies and restricted for the purposes of the
present study to a defined set of strategies associated with addressing and
apologising. The hypotheses about a routinized and culture-specific nature
of linguistic politeness will be verified by corpus-based data (for details see
section 0.4).
Theoretical framework and preliminary presuppositions
The theoretical framework applied here is rooted in functional and
systemic grammar, as advocated by the Prague school scholars, their
followers and linguists working within a similar functional framework (cf.
M.A.K. HALLIDAY ) or other models of Functional Grammar (cf. John
H. CONNOLLY et al, 1996), where language is intrinsically regarded as
a vehicle of communicative interaction and as such is said to have a strongly
pragmatic orientation. That is to say that in system theory, in which two
approaches are usually distinguished (cf. de BEAUGRANDE, 1980:8), i.e.
modularity and interaction, my interest and my outlook are rather directed
towards interaction. The analysis of corpus-based data brings me to the
representation of actual system (e.g. utterances) rather than to the virtual
system (e.g. sentences).
Politeness is not a static logical concept, it is a dynamic interpersonal
activity (H. ARNDT & R.W. JANNEY, 1989:2), a social as well as
linguistic phenomenon and as such cannot be adequately handled within
a narrowly defined linguistic model or measured solely in linguistic terms
(URBANOV, 1998:12).
This preliminary characteristics implies the following presuppositions:
(1) interdisciplinarity
In order to achieve relevant findings, the approach to such phenomena as
politeness should be interdisciplinary, including a psychological perspective
(as applied e.g. in LANGACKERs (1991) conception of cognitive linguistics
but with STUBBs (1983:45-48) criticism i.e. that the psychological
approach to communication focuses on fact-giving role of language thus
ignoring or partially ignoring other functions of language, including the
expressions of feelings); a sociolinguistic perspective as represented e.g.
by HALLIDAYs (1978) conception of man as a social man and language
as social semiotic, or RAMIREZs (1992:200) idea of a dialogic or
social-communicative origin of human consciousness, as manifested e.g.

15

by the social organisation of private speech; the analysis should also take
into consideration the findings from the theory of communication in general
(cf. e.g. the mechanisms of turn-taking and turn-giving; the role of empathy,
the specificity of focus-group communication, the role of communicative
experience, specificity of monologues as opposed to dialogues or polylogues,
etc.) and the ethnography of communication in particular (as an
interdisciplinary approach to discourse based in anthropology and linguistics
and the shared interest in communication, communicative competence,
cross-cultural diversity and similarity, interest in language use, etc.).
Note. As SCHIFFRIN (1994:138) points out in reference to HYMES (1974),
the approach is rooted in SAPIRs (1933) movement from the study of
sociostructural form and content as product towards their study as process;
cf. also HYMES in a series of papers written in the 1960s and 1970s, most of them
collected in HYMES, 1974; and D. SCHIFFRIN, 1994.

And since an integral part of language use is the knowledge of

tradition, rituals, stereotypes and routine, an inevitable part of a complex
approach should include pragmatics in both its main manifestations, i.e. as
external pragmatics (non-linguistic pragmatics in WIERZBICKA, 1991:
19) associated with our general knowledge of the world, and as internal
pragmatics (also referred to as linguistic pragmatics or pragmalinguistics),
i.e. our experience with particular linguistic manifestations and their
functions in a given language community.
As apparent from this statement, the approach to pragmatics as applied
here, presupposes the existence of a pragmatic dimension (TRNYIKOV,
1985) or a pragmatic perspective (VERSCHUEREN, 1987) at every level
of language representation and in this respect is close to WIERZBICKAs
(1991:19) standpoint about pragmatics being up to a point an integral
part of linguistics but differs from other possible approaches inspired by
MORRISs (1938) triad of syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. (For different
ways of viewing the relationship between semantics and pragmatics see
LEECH, 1983:6.) Close to the interpretation of pragmatics as a dimension
or perspective seems to be the approach of D. BLACKMORE (1992) who,
inspired by SPERBER and WILSONs (1986) theory of relevance, explains
her standpoint in the following way:

16

Here pragmatic interpretation is seen as a psychological matter, governed by a

single cognitive principle, and the distinction between semantics and pragmatics
is a psychological distinction based on the difference between linguistic and nonlinguistic knowledge.
D. Blackmore (1993:19)

For a cross-cultural approach, WIERZBICKAs (1991) monograph on

cross-cultural pragmatics is a useful introductory guide to the study of crosscultural similarities and differences, sensitive to actual rather than virtual
language manifestations, though thinking in terms of practical applicability,
her pragmatic universal primitives are very often difficult to follow and the
consequent impact on the reader is rather impresionistic.
So far about pragmatics. In the next section attention will be paid to a
brief introduction of the contribution of the philosophers of language whose
findings should not be neglected.
In tracing the reasons for being polite and overtly manifest this intention
through language, one is expected to learn something not only about the
above mentioned specificity of communicative mechanisms, but also
about the principles influencing the range of activities achieved through
communication (i.e. what we perform during communication, as advocated
e.g. by the speech act theory), as well as the conversational maxims, guiding
us towards the intended goals. These are the findings of the philosophers of
language (AUSTIN, 1962, SEARLE,1969, GRICE, 1975).
And the list of disciplines interested in politeness and contributing to its
elucidation seems to be endless, since we have to think of statistics if we want
to trace the quantitative parameters, computer science for working with the
computerised corpora, etc. The last two disciplines, however, seem to belong
to the inventory of all researchers, and as such can be taken as prerequisites
rather than interdisciplinary perspectives.
A multidisciplinary intersection between linguistics, anthropology,
ethnography, sociology, and psychology is represented by recent attempts
at contact linguistics, interested in language contact situations world-wide
but also in country-by-country profiles and by D. SCHIFFRINs (1994)
model of interactional sociolinguistics based in anthropology, sociology, and
linguistics and sharing the concern in language, society, and culture.

17

Note. The contact-linguistic approach has increased my sensitiveness to the

contact-induced language choice of a limited number of English discourse
markers penetrating into everyday encounters of many Czech language users
who want to sound westernised following the speech habits of TV series heroes
or film protagonists, though, in case of Czech users, the repertory of discourse
markers seems to have been reduced to two, i.e. sorry and okay. The younger
generation, however, seems to have gone a step further i.e. towards a contactinduced language change, thus using a rather substandard but domesticated
expression sor to manifest the politeness of apologies.

(2) universality
The second presupposition is linked with the degree of universality (in its
weak rather than strong interpretation). There might be a core of universal
phenomena in this field of investigation, i.e. some politeness strategies might
be expected to occur across languages, but, on the other hand, my working
hypothesis is, that this is the domain where tradition-bound and culture-bound
stereotypes have developed into rituals that might be expected to be primarily
language-specific (I base my hypothesis on the findings from my diploma
thesis in which I attempted at a cross-language analysis of another domain of
communicatively regulative language devices, as represented by the English
discourse markers well, oh, and now and their Czech functional equivalents,
cf. VLKOV, 1990). The most sound support for my approach, however,
has been found in the studies by WIERZBICKA (1985a,b; 1991).
A more objective reason for making me think of a language-specific nature
of the manifestations of politeness is the fact that in tracing politeness, we are
in the domain of communicatively regulative rather than communicatively
constitutive units, and as LEECH (1983) pointed out, communicatively
regulative units are principle controlled rather than rule governed. So, what
I expected to be faced with during my analysis, were different principles
applied or different degrees of relevance put to the same principle in English
and Czech rather than different rules disclosed.
Consequently, these differences will be difficult to grasp since what
seems to be essential in the overt language manifestations of politeness, is
not only a good choice of lexical representation and grammatical structures
(including relevant configurations and a relevant timing, i.e. to say the right
thing in the right time).
For those universalists who are interested in language constructs,
i.e. constructivists, the question of universality would be most probably
formulated in relation to the capability of building a model of politeness with

18

various modules built into it. The question, however, is what sort of modules
would we need and what kind of relations would have to be established
between those modules, and what kind of processing strategies would be
required to approximate the communicative performance of natural language
users. (See an attempt at an application in the discussion section of the
monograph by SIFIANOU, 1992.)
0.2

Narrowing the Scope

Given the diversity of strategies by which politeness can be signalled,

the task of encapsulating its nature and goals would seem to have very
little chance of success. Even if we confine ourselves to the study of
verbal communication (thus leaving the non-verbal communication mostly
untouched), and even if we restrict our scope to segmental units leaving
the role of supra-segmental features implicitly activated (cf. the standpoint
of Prof. J. MACHEK in our PhD seminar, Olomouc, 1997) but explicitly
untouched - the chance for a single researcher is very limited and I will hardly
do justice to the whole range of language devices used to manifest politeness
in its totality. For the role of intonation in indicating the Dynamic semantic
function (DSF) of the individual sentence elements and thus providing
a running commentary on the attitudes of the speaker to the content of his/
her utterance, see FIRBAS (1998:58).
Having this in mind, I have opted for narrowing the scope and restricting
the data-based analysis to a defined set of politeness strategies and a set
of language devices used for their manifestations. My choice of particular
phenomena upon which to base the sample analysis stems from the following
central concerns:
(1) addressing and
(2) apologising
In my global prospect for the future, compliments will also be taken into
consideration as a diplomatic strategy of making addressee feel good (cf.
R. LAKOFFs, 1973 third component of her pragmatic rule Be Polite).

19

Reasons for preferences

The reasons for my preference within the politeness strategies were
rather pragmatic: I wanted to have a sample of strategies activating as it
were the politeness domain in the initial step of addressing participants in
communication (thus giving them an interpretative cue towards the kind of
politeness strategy preferred and the consequent language manifestation of
the preferences in social deixis, i.e. whether solidarity or distance/power),
and a sample of a polite form of expressing regret over an impolite behaviour
and its impact on the addressee as manifested by apologies.
The choice of the above mentioned strategies (i.e. addressing and
apologizing) allows me to trace politeness as a manifestation of a well-planned
responsibility and empathy towards the addressee, as well as politeness as
a remedial device smoothing the tension caused by the previous offence or
a disturbing event.
Note. Originally, I also planned to include the strategy of requesting into the
scope but having found out that requesting in general and the role of questions
in politeness in particular have become regular case study representations
in the studies on pragmatics, I have given the idea up (for the polite role of
sincere questions, clarification questions and confirmation questions, see e.g.
GREEN,1989:154157; WIERZBICKA, 1991; for a functional and systemic
approach to requesting see URBANOV, 1998).

Quantifying the data

Another problem I was faced with was the quantification of data. Once we
accept the notion of a functional zero in the manifestation of politeness, i.e.
the functional silence, how do we know how many functional silences have
there been applied by the speaker? It is not countable the way ellipses, for
example, can be traced once you are familiar with the respective language
code. Moreover, two utterances need not necessarily differ in the degree of
politeness but rather in the amount of help the hearer is given in disclosing
what is communicated and why, i.e. we are polite by shaping the utterance in
the appropriate way (cf. R. LAKOFFs (1973) findings about the overlapping
of her rule of clarity and the rule of politeness in 1.3).
(In some cultures, however, quantification of politeness may result in
more relevant findings. As COULMAS (1989:22) pointed out when tracing
the linguistic etiquette in Japanese, a simple criterion of scaling politeness is
length with a direct correlation between the length of an expression relative
to others with similar content and the degree of politeness, i.e. the longer, the
more polite.)
20

Individuals social competence

What we also have to take into consideration is the fact that there are
speakers and speakers. Some of them communicate with a torrent of words,
others with one, with a grunt or with a silence, some are witty, original,
some prefer routinized way of communication (cf. EDMONDSONs 1981:
274 term individuals social competence to refer to such situations). All this
subjectivizes the quantification and decreases its reliability. Nevertheless,
in those cases, where explicit language devices have been used to manifest
politeness, quantification has been found to be a very useful tool supporting
the qualitative findings.
Binarity or scalarity
Before analysing such a multifaceted phenomenon as politeness, I also
had to decide whether the discrete manifestations of politeness will be seen
as manifestations of particular points on the imaginary scale of politeness,
i.e. whether I will treat politeness as a scalar property, or a system of binary
oppositions of devices that are either polite or impolite. The material I
analysed have persuaded me that scales or clines are more suitable to represent
the variety of language manifestations of politeness and their delicacy. This
is backed e.g. by S. IDEs, 1986 and 1992: 281 proposal to think of a
continuum between polite, non-polite and impolite behaviour. In IDE et al
(1986), politeness is a neutral concept used as a label for a scale ranging from
plus through zero towards minus polite. In their conception, polite refers
to plus-valued politeness, impolite means minus-valued politeness, and nonpolite marks the neutral or zero-valued centre of the scale.
Multiple continua
Having accepted the notion of a multifaceted nature of politeness, we
can expect various continua to be associated with its language manifestation
to reflect different facetes. Compare, for example a cline ranging from
conscious to unconscious usage, from direct to indirect usage (for the role
of indirectness in signalling politeness see e.g. URBANOV, 1998); a scale
ranging from ceremonial idioms including conventionalised sequences of
the type God bless you Thank you (GOFFMAN, 1956) to creative ad hoc
usage; a scale of metapragmatic awareness ranging from lexical items of
a clear referential value (kind, polite) to routine structures (Will you pass
me the salt?); in sociological dimension, a scale from power to solidarity has
to be taken into consideration as a part of the above-mentioned integrated
approach (for details see Chapter Two).

21

A peripheral remark concerns my restriction to those manifestations of politeness,

in which politeness is interpreted in its primary rather than modified reading,
though the ways of how to use overt language manifestations of politeness for
rather intricate purposes is of no less interest (cf. e.g. JACKENDOFFs (1993:
xiii) way of doing so in the introductory section of his book: To all those who,
through haste, oversight, or ignorance, I have still failed to insult adequately,
my apologies., or R. Carvers (1978) title of the book Will you please be quiet,
please.), not to speak about the devices expressing appraisal (= manifestation of
politeness) in the context, which does not support politeness at all, cf. e.g. the
following reaction to an insult Youre so tactful! which is interpreted as irony.

Focus on segmental units

As mentioned before, the focus is on segmental units of language
representation. The function of intonation in discourse is so complex that I
do not feel competent to go into this phenomenon here, though footnotes are
scattered throughout the discussion section (cf. apologies). The same holds
true of prosody in general and its role in politeness interpretation. BROWN
& LEVINSON (1978:272) mention a number of cultures in which phonetic
properties of speech are used as politeness tactics, e.g. palatalization of
consonants, the use of falsetto, etc.
Conscious use of means of politeness
Final restriction in the present thesis concerns the above mentioned cline
of conscious usage ranging from consciously used language devices (in order
to create a particular impression of the speaker) via those situations in which
the linguistic choice may be made of which the speaker is not aware to a
mere leakage, i.e. unintended features the speaker attempts to eliminate when
s/he becomes aware of them. Here, the focus is primarily on the conscious
use of the devices of politeness, while the leakage, if taken into view, is
thought of as a back-grounding device.
To conclude this introductory section, I would like to emphasise again
that the main focus of the study is pragma-linguistic, though not in the narrow
sense. It draws from the findings of the previous interdisciplinary approaches
mainly because a topic such as politeness cannot be adequately handled
within a narrowly defined linguistic model.

22

0.3

Content and Organisation

In Introduction the goal is specified, i.e. to map the domain of politeness,

with attention paid to both politeness as a network of communicative
strategies and politeness as a language manifestation finding its ways of
expression at various levels of language representation. For such a task two
basic presuppositions have been taken into consideration to achieve relevant
results: the approach has to be sensitive to interdisciplinarity and universality.
The scope has been narrowed to the study of verbal communication, and
attention will be paid to the language manifestation of communicative
strategies associated with addressing and apologizing. A more detailed
specification of the content and organization follows.
Chapter One Setting the Scene is an attempt at surveying
achievements in the study of language manifestation of politeness, and
introduces a theoretical framework which will be applied in the following
sections, together with the working definition of linguistic politeness. The
questions addressed include the perception of politeness and the status of
the parameters by which politeness can be traced, i.e. whether we are in the
domain of rules, principles, maxims, or a psychological domain of senses,
etc., and explains the notion of face in both English and Czech cultures.
Chapter Two Politeness and Social Deixis approaches politeness
from the sociological perspective, within the theoretical framework of
HALLIDAYs (1978,1984) conception of language as social semiotic and
man as social man not in opposition to individual man but as the
individual in his social environment, with all the consequences for language
manifestations, including politeness. HALLIDAYs theoretical framework
will be applied to addressing seen as social politeness manifested through
social deixis. This Chapter is hoped to demonstrate the need of a multifaceted
approach to the forms of addressing, sensitive to the dynamism of change
in social deixis, as well as the need of a macro-structure approach to the
corpus-based data.
Chapter Three Politeness in Apologising aims at projecting apologies
into the speech-act-theory frame, as well as into conversation analysis models
with the hope of finding an optimal model sensitive to authentic corpusbased data. Instead of treating speech acts as invariable abstract categories,
COULMAS standpoint ( i.e. to treat speech acts as defined in a given socio-

23

cultural and linguistic system) has become the basis of our standpoint here.
Our analysis of data-based apologetic patterns should illustrate our approach
and support our notion of speech-act-sets rather than individual speech acts
underlying communicative strategies as manifested in the ways we use
language to make apologies.
Note. The linguistic politeness as manifested by apologies is looked upon as
the manifestation of H(earer)-Support maxim, and LAKOFFs (1973) Rule
of politeness number 3, i.e. Make A(ddressee) feel good, later (1975:65)
reformulated as Camaraderie: show sympathy.

For the characteristics of the corpora used, see 0.4.

In Chapter Four Politeness in Second Language Acquisition (an
outline), the focus is on the second language acquisition of the phenomena
of politeness, with attention paid to cross-cultural similarities and differences
and their consequences for textbook production and EFL methodology.
The main goal of the application section, however, is to support the sociopsychological point of view that politeness is not a static concept but a
dynamic interpersonal activity (cf. also ARNDT & JANNEY, 1987), closely
linked with appropriateness and social harmony (URBANOV, 1998:
12). Rather than offering an overview, the chapter represents an outline
of my data-based findings relevant for further research. The similarities
and differences between two typologically different languages, i.e. English
and Czech will be used as the basis for evaluating the methodological
procedures applied in transmitting politeness strategies and their language
manifestations into teaching materials (textbooks) used in teaching English
to Czechs learners of English as a foreign language.
In Concluding remarks the main findings will be surveyed together with
some suggestions for further research in the field.
0.4 Data
Inspired by STUBBS (1983:237-8), who argues that discourse analysis
cannot ignore actual occurrences, but it would be a similar mistake to
restrict study to actual occurrences, without using other data: intuitive
and experimental, and participants as well as analysts account

24

I opted for the following sources to verify the theoretical findings and
hypotheses:
(1) computerised material based on the written version of A Corpus of
English Conversation (J. Svartvik and R. Quirk, 1980), often referred
to as London-Lund corpus (LLC). This was my primary source for the
verification of the strategies used in apologies;
(2) a transcribed corpus of the Radio Phone-in Talk Show represented by
Irv Homer Show (broadcast throughout the Middle-Atlantic region in
the USA and hosted by Irv Homer). The corpus has been borrowed with
a kind permission of the author from an unpublished Ph.D. thesis by
M. Ferenk, Preov (1998) to verify the dynamism of the strategies used
in addressing.
(3) an Internet document on the impeachment hearings in connection with
Clinton-Lewinsky case published by Federal News Service, Friday,
Dec. 11, 1998 under the title Dec.11: Debate and Vote on Article I
(Washingtonpost.com Special Report: Clinton Accused). This corpus was
used to verify the stereotypes and routine in an institutionalised way of
addressing (i.e. addressing as an act of politic verbal behaviour rather than
politeness proper).
(4) my own examples extracted from a theatrical play by Edward Albee ( Who
is afraid of Virginia Woolf?) and compared with the Czech translation by
Luba and Rudolf Pellars (see References). This sample was used for the
comparison of culture- and tradition-bound similarities and differences
(though in a relatively marked sample of communication as represented
by an absurd drama).
Examples used to illustrate partial theoretical findings are numbered
consecutively within each chapter together with the information about the
source.
Having taken all the traps of politeness into consideration together with
my limited experience of a researcher, I find it fair to confess that the present
study is just a modest contribution to the field which to me has opened
new and exciting avenues of inquiry into the complex relation between
communicatively constitutive and communicatively regulative language
means and the strategies behind their usage, resulting in a diversity of
language manifestations we use in speaking for others and speaking for
ourselves.

25

Chapter One
POLITENESS SETTING THE SCENE
1.1

Perception of Politeness

I begin this section by presenting some of the concepts and ideas basic to
the notion of politeness.
Modern research on linguistic politeness has been criticised for having
a strong ethnocentric bias (IDE 1989), since it has been mostly carried out
within a Western European/North American cultural framework dating back
to the eighteenth century paradigm (at least with respect to its function
of a mask). As a reaction to the western paradigm, many workshops on
cross-language analysis of politeness phenomena have been initiated by
the Japanese, and a series of studies have been published emphasising the
specificity of politeness phenomena in Asian languages as manifested before
all by the models of honorific systems, seen as a mandatory manifestation of
linguistic etiquette.
A contrastive approach to the two cultural traditions reveals the necessity
to consider linguistic politeness within the framework of socio-cultural needs
of a given community, as e.g. IDE et al. (1990) did in their study on the
concept of politeness in American English and Japanese.
Using native speaker judgements, they tried to demonstrate that the
nominally corresponding terms polite and teineina differ in their conceptual
structure (for the American subjects, the adjectives polite and friendly
correlated highly when applied to certain behaviour, while for Japanese
subjects they seemed to fall into different dimensions).
The first question we have to address is whether politeness can be
identified with socially adequate behaviour or whether it means something
else. Pragmatically, we might be tempted to answer the first part of the
question in the affirmative, but, as WATTS (1989) pointed out, in our
everyday encounters there are many manifestations of socially adequate
behaviour which are just taken for granted as the adequate reactions to the
social norms shared by interlocutors, i.e. what WATTS calls adequate politic
behaviour. Only in those cases in which volition supersedes discernment in
the choice of specific linguistic forms such as honorifics, terms of address,

27

ritualized expressions, etc., we are dealing with politeness phenomena

(WATTS, op. cit. p.12).
Problems with applicability
In terms of cross-cultural perspective, however, the introduction of the
notions of adequate politic behaviour into the description of data might
cause problems in setting the limits to what is felt as a norm and what is felt
to go beyond the norm and represents a choice. In this state of art it seems
to be more functional to think of linguistic politeness as a scale with partly
normative (mandatory) and partly optional language manifestations.
Politeness as a mask/face?
Further problem to solve before tracing language manifestation of
politeness is whether politeness is perceived as a strategy used to fulfil
altruistic goals or as a mask to conceal less altruistic ends (as a velvet glove
to soften the blow). Many linguists dealing with politeness (COULMAS
(1981), BROWN & LEVINSON (1987), WATTS (1989)), agree that
politeness is perceived as fulfilling both those functions on condition that the
socio-cultural structure of the speech community ratifies them.
To some linguists, the perception of politeness is linked with attentiveness.
CLARK & SCHUNKs (1980) in formulating their Attentiveness Hypothesis
have taken into consideration the point of view of the hearer, argueing that the
more attentive the hearer is to speakers reactions, the more polite he is.
Historically, we might not be far from reality to say that the concept of
politeness as a mask (with the connotation of hiding something and thus
enhancing individuals self-esteem and status in the eyes of the others)
has given way to the concept of politeness as a face reducing friction in
personal interaction. This is, however, not to say that the egocentric nature
of politeness behaviour has disappeared altogether (as apparent e.g. from the
strategies used in apologizing; see section 3.3.4.B).
The notion of face is typical of the conception of BROWN & LEVINSON
(1978) discussed here in section 1.3.2.
As WIERZBICKA (1991:6), however, pointed out, the labels such as
face, intimacy, etc.
are defined in terms which are language-specific (usually Englishspecific), and which provide no language independent, universal
perspective on the meaning expressed in linguistic interaction.

28

Politeness as a configuration of choices

Robin LAKOFFs (1973) approach to the notion of linguistic politeness is
dynamic. When discussing the logic of politeness, she approaches politeness
as a configuration of choices on the side of the speaker and describes the
choices in Rules 13 (for details see section 1.3.1) arranged on a scale from
formality to friendliness or intimate politeness.
1.1.0 Positive vs. Negative Politeness
This section is a survey of BROWN and LEVINSONs (B&L) framework
(discussed for comparison with other theories also in section 1.3.2).
Terminologically, the very labels i.e. positive or negative politeness seem
to be rather misleading, since one might well ask what can be negative on
politeness and the very question would probably be interpreted as a rhetorical
rather then any other kind of questions. So why the labels? It seems to me
to be the case that the labels are the result of a short circuit procedure by
which two different strategies of how to achieve politeness are described in
relation to ones face (interpreted as social face in Hallidays framework
of language as social semiotic).
Any communication, as a purposeful activity, is supposed to be a kind
of a trade with ones face (interpreted in GOFFMANs (1967) concept as
a manifestation of self esteem of an individual). In order not to lose the face,
interlocutors use strategies of how to diminish the impact of face threatening
acts (FTA). Communicants as members of a social community, are supposed
to have two kinds of face: negative, i.e. the want of self determination (the
freedom to act unimpeded), and positive, the want of approval (i.e. the
satisfaction of having ones values approved of).
In this model, three independent variables are used to assess the severity
of FTA:
1. social distance between the speaker and hearer
2. their relative power and
3. the degree of imposition associated with the expenditure of goods and
services (after BROWN & LEVINSON 1987:74).

29

Though the network of procedures and the consequent discrete steps are
impressive, the application to authentic language data seems to be problematic
(cf. the attempts in SIFIANOU, 1992). Moreover, as WIERZBICKA (1991)
pointed out, B& L model is ethnocentric (Anglo-centric), focusing on values
that need not necessarily be shared by other communities.
1.1.1 Politeness and Tact
Another dilemma to solve was whether to separate politeness and tact
or treat them together. LEECH (1983:104), supplementing GRICEs (1975)
Co-operative Principle by Politeness Principle suggested further subcategorisation into the maxims of Tact, Generosity, Approbation, Modesty,
etc. This was criticised by BROWN & LEVINSON (1987:4) who pointed out
that if we had to posit new maxims every time we wish to explain something,
we might simply end up with an infinite number of maxims, and the theory of
politeness would become vacuous.
ARNDT & JANNEY (1985), on the other hand, make a functional
distinction between social politeness and tact arguing that while social
politeness is a reflection of an arbitrary social norm, tact is a form of a
creative politeness and as such is said to be a highly developed form of
emotive communication sensitive to cultural modifications.
Thus, instead of a possible subcategorization of politeness into social and
personal, the authors opted for a binary opposition of social politeness and
tact, which roughly corresponds to the binary opposition of verbal politic
behaviour and politeness in WATTS (1989). The following Tab. 1 attempts
at illustrating the differences and, at the same time, the potential source of
misunderstanding.

30

Tab. 1 Subcategorization of Politeness

Politeness as a binary opposition
Social politeness (A & J)
Politic verbal behaviour (W)

Personal politeness = Tact (A& J)

Politeness (proper) (W)

Politeness as a cline including both types

A&J = Arndt and Janney, W = Watts; the last line of the table indicates our suggestion
to approach politeness as a cline with a partial overlapping of both types.

1.1.2 Linguistic politeness

The interest in linguistic politeness, also referred to as verbal politeness,
linguistic etiquette (COULMAS, 1981) or treated under the terms of politic
verbal behaviour and politeness, cf. WATTS, 1989) or as the study of
politeness in relation to language, has had its tides coming in and going out
initiated by different social needs and determined by different social-bound
priorities.
According to R.WATTS (1989), cf. also our discussion in the Introduction,
previous to the work of R. LAKOFF (1973), the study of linguistic politeness
was largely the domain of those focussing on the ways of addressing and
honorifics. As for the latter, the interest has been stimulated by the languages
like Japanese or Hindi, in which status and distance markers are encoded
grammatically. Stress in those earlier studies is said to be placed on the
distinction between T(tu) and V(vous) forms in pronominal system as
markers of a complex interplay of power, dominance and distance (see later
in section 2.2.1)
Research in pragmatics and sociolinguistics over the last decades has
offered us definitions of linguistic politeness which only partly correspond
to the perception of politeness as characterized in various books on etiquette
dating back to the eighteenth century, in which polished manners and
appropriate language behaviour were the attributes of a person who had
an access to the ruling elite. In the fiction of the Victorian age (cf. SELLs
(1988) discussion quoted by WATTS (1989) on how literary texts within
a British socio-cultural framework may be considered polite), there are

31

numerous reflections of the requirement to cultivate politeness as a sign of

good breeding and high social status. If, however, we scratch the surface
of polite behaviour in the eighteenth century, we frequently encounter
positive selfishness, malevolence, evil. SELL is even more pregnant in his
formulation of the negative side of politeness when stating (op. cit. p. 4).
probably the best thing most people would say about politeness is that it is a
social lubricant less nocuous than alcohol, probably useful, like free alcohol, for
the corps diplomatique. Or, still more likely, that it is a velvet glove within which
to hide one or another kind of iron fist.

Justice, however, is to say, that the author also takes into consideration
a more optimistic approach to politeness and refers to The English
Theophrastus: or the manners of the age (1702) in which politeness is linked
up with such notions as appropriate verbal behaviour and minimization of
face threatening. As apparent from the following definition of politeness, it
has always been difficult to separate linguistic from non-linguistic activities:
Politeness may be defined as dextrous management of our Words and Actions
whereby men (sic!) make other people have a better Opinion of us and
themselves. (p. 108)

The ego-centric nature of politeness behaviour is also apparent from

SELLs wording (as opposed e.g. to LAKOFF (1975) or LEECH (1983)). As
WATTS puts it
linguistic politeness is subject to changes in the overall structure of society
throughout time. If the social constraints on politeness change, i.e. the features of
that in-group which qualifies as the social elite of the age, so too will the forms
of linguistic politeness. In this sense, rules of linguistic politeness are always
regulative and ephemeral. WATTS (1989:7)

Thus, while the canon of politeness in the eighteenth century included

ritualized forms of verbal behaviour interpreted as forms of linguistic
politeness, or manifestations of appropriate speech acts, such as thanking,
complimenting, apologising, terms of address or ways of expressing
deference, it also included e.g. the choice of lexical units taken as evidence of
good education, the avoidance of taboo lexemes (but also taboo topics), etc.
Following WATTS (op. cit. p. 7) we can conclude by saying that
the eighteenth century canon included a much wider variety of features
considered to be manifestations of linguistic politeness.

32

The idea of a positive mask covering negative feelings is hoped to have

given way to a more positive approach to the very essence of linguistic
politeness nowadays.
This section is not an overview of linguistic politeness research, since
the most comprehensive overview to my knowledge, besides the new edition
of BROWN & LEVINSONs 1987 study published under the revised title
Politeness: some universals in language usage, can be found in Gino
EELENs (2001) relevant monograph focusing on nine core theories of
politeness, as represented by Robin Tolmach Lakoff, Penelope Brown and
S.C. Levinson, Geoffrey N. Leech, Sachiko Ide, Shoshana Blum-Kulka,
Yueguo Gu, Bruce Fraser & William Nolen, Horst Arndt & R. W. Janney and
Richard Watts. The analysis of the various distinctions in those theories is so
systematically treated there that there is little sense in repeating them here.
Instead, references will be only selective.
1.1.2.1 Routinised Nature of Linguistic Politeness
It has been repeatedly stressed by many scholars (HYMES, 1962,
BOLINGER, 1976, CHAFE, 1970, and particularly by COULMAS, 1981)
that similarly to the way communicative activity in general consists of enacting
routines making use of prefabricated linguistic units in a well-known and
generally accepted manner (COULMAS, op. cit. p. 1), in the domain of
politeness, as manifested through language, verbal routines and structural
routines may be expected to be functionally appropriate reactions to
more or less standardised communicative situations (greetings, apologies,
compliments, etc.) supported by similar speech events and communicative
goals.
Conversational routines, as understood here, have been defined by
COULMAS (op. cit.: 4) as tacit agreements, which the members of a
community presume to be shared by every reasonable co-member. The
definition reveals the community-restricted nature of such routines and
evokes expectations about their culture-specific character, or, in other words,
enables one to deduce consequences for a cross-language comparison.
A typical feature of those routines, as might be expected, is the high
frequency of occurrence of a limited number of structural patterns and a
restricted repertory of lexical representations, e.g. Nice to see you. I havent
seen you for ages. Take care! (cf. the limited repertory of evaluative adjectives
used in compliments in MANES and WOLFSON, 1981:121).

33

In a cross-language analysis, it is of no less importance to realise the

restrictions in collocability of lexical items in routinised sequences. Thus,
as quoted by COULMAS (1981:6), *My good wishes. or *Several thanks.
are deviant in respect of collocability, while My best wishes. and Many
thanks. are not. The deviation has nothing to do with structural or lexical
representation, it is determined by usage. In this respect, routines may be said
to be good guides to adequate participation in social interaction.
So, the conclusion we can reach might be worded as follows: part of
language politeness is based on routinised and standardized manifestations.
This raises four consequent questions:
(1) Which portion of language manifestations of politeness can be said to be
routinised?
(2) What kinds of routines are we faced with?
(3) How is it with language creativity ? and
(4) What kind of creativity are we faced with?
It would be a naive expectation to answer such questions one by
one, since creativity in language, as COULMAS (1981:6) put it is to be
regarded as an intricate interplay of grammatical rules, functional adequacy,
situational appropriateness, stylistic preferences, and norms of use (cf. also
the discussion in 3.3.3, Question 6).
1.1.3 Indirectness and Politeness
There is clearly a problem of establishing an objective measure of
indirectness and its values. Moreover, the existing theories, such as BROWN
& LEVINSONs (1987) have been claimed to be influenced by ethnocentrism
(WIERZBICKA, 1985). A suggestion of an applicable solution can be traced
in the proposal of conversationalists.
The analysis of authentic conversational language manifestations has
brought into the focus of attention of many analysts the role of semantic
indeterminacy as a communicative intention in the act of communication.
An invaluable contribution in this field is the unpublished monograph
by URBANOV (1998), offering a taxonomy of basic manifestations of
semantic indeterminacy in present-day English conversation, including
(op. cit. p. 25): indirectness, impersonality, attenuation and accentuation
accompanied by vagueness. All of them are said to modify the illocutionary
force of the message.
34

Indirectness has to do with deliberate lack of precision and lack of

specificity in the identification of referents, etc. (cf. WIERZBICKA, 1991:
94), which in certain contexts may be interpreted as polite. There is no wonder
then that the nature of whimperatives (i.e. directives phrased interrogatively
and used to issue requests in English, e.g. Would you pass me the salt? vs.
Pass me the salt (please)), similarly to the role of indirect questions, has
contributed to the tendency to equate indirectness with politeness. But, as
URBANOV puts it
To equate indirectness with politeness would be a simplification since
indirectness evidently displays a semantic range wider than politeness,
being associated with manifestations of self-protection, self defence,
evasiveness etc.
URBANOV (op. cit. p. 34)
Similarly, politeness can be said to have a wider range of both formal
and semantic properties to be equated with indirectness, though, there are
cultures, in which talking politely means to sound indirect (cf. Japanese).
As MIZUTANI (1987:36) quoted by WIERZBICKA (1991:94) explains,
in order to sound indirect, one does not say what he wants but rather sends
implicit messages with the hope that the addressee will respond to them.
WIERZBICKAs suggestion of the procedure is the following (op. cit. p.94):
I want something
I dont want to say this
I will say something else because of this
I think the person will know what I want.
The following example will illustrate an intricate strategy of how to apply
the procedure above. It is an Internet version of an extract from an apology
addressed by Monika Lewinsky to the First Lady and Chelsea
Example 1
I wouldnt dream of asking Chelsea and Mrs. Clinton to forgive me, but I
would ask them to know that I am very sorry for what happened and for
what theyve been through.
(The Daily News, March 31, 1999).
To HALLIDAY (1975) indirectness cannot be interpreted as a lack of
information but rather as an opening of a new dimension for meaning more
than we are saying but at the same time for leaving space for the addressee

35

to infer what we mean. This leaving space technique opens a dimension for
addressees creativeness and is part of politeness strategies by which we can
show deference, respect, etc. but also avoid to be rude.
Consequently, indirectness will be treated here as a welcome contribution
to the language manifestation of the indirect speech acts participating
in the manifestation of politeness but not as a strategy prototypically
representing language manifestation of politeness across cultures. The
values of indirectness will be thought of as culture-specific (i.e. the role
of indirectness in Anglo-Saxon culture, American culture, Czech culture,
etc.). This approach is close to D. TANNENs (1981: 229) suggestion to
speak of modes of indirectness and it is also sensitive to the findings of
ethnographers, i.e. that e.g. indirectness may be related to another cultural
norm, such as dissimilation or pretence in Javanese (GEERTZ 1976,
quoted by WIERZBICKA, 1991: 100).
1.1.4 Informality and Politeness
Similarly to indirectness, informality is not looked upon as a universal
cultural attitude but as a culture-bound phenomenon whose language
manifestation, interpretation and frequency of occurrence are accordingly
culture-specific (if we leave aside the fact that within one culture, there can
also be individual preferences).
WIERZBICKA (1991), when describing the nature of Australian
informality, as the Australian ethos of super-egalitarianism, says that it lies
in the purposeful rejection of any overt show of respect, with implications
of familiarity, friendliness, and equality. Her example with a travel agency
clerk responding in the following way to a call
Example 2: American Express, Cathy speaking. (WIERZBICKA, op.
cit.: 111)
invites in fact anonymous callers to treat her as if they knew her well and that
there is no need to show overt respect towards her (e.g. by calling her Miss,
Mrs or Ms.).
Similarly, a university lecturer in many cultures invites his/her students to
address him/her by first name/s.
The discrete steps of this social gesture are explained by WIERZBICKA
(1991:112) in the following discrete steps

36

(a) you dont have to show overt respect to me

(b) I want you to speak to me as people do when they think:
(c) we know one another well
(d) we feel something good towards one another
(e) we can speak to one another in the same way
Component (c) does not seem to be of general validity, since it would be
difficult to imagine that for example the travel clerk (in the example above)
would think in this line about an anonymous caller.
This, as WIERZBICKA (p.112) puts it, does not mean that e.g. at formal
meetings speakers would not speak in a very formal way.
(In Czech culture, informality is not valued in the same way and relative
formality is often linked with the manifestation of deterence and politeness,
and is far from excluding the notion of a democratic ethos.)
Essential for the present analysis is WIERZBICKAs finding (op. cit.
p. 113) that though informality tends to be linked with egalitarianism
and hierarchy tends to be linked with formality, none of the links is
straightforward and has to be looked upon in the context of other cultural
norms and values of a given community. What seems to complicate the
situation is the fact that informality is very often confused with intimacy and
closeness (WIERZBICKA, op. cit. p. 111).
The conclusion we can reach in connection with politeness is rather vague:
both formality and informality can be either polite or impolite depending on
the configurations of other social factors of a communicative situation. And
we can go even a step further in the generalisation by stating that all global
labels, when decontextualized, can be misleading.
1.2

Working Definition of Politeness

Having left aside the phenomenon referred to as politeness paradox

(LEECH, 1983:83), i.e. an ideally polite situation in which both participants
would be determined to be absolutely polite so that there would be an infinite
series of polite exchanges leading to inaction (cf. the situations we are often
faced with when endlessly offering our colleague, partner, etc., to go first
through the doorway) and having instead followed D. TANNENs (1986:
301) identification of two types of human needs, i.e. to connect to others and
to be left alone and her assumption that the linguistic concept of politeness
37

is said to account for the way we react to the double bind, I suggest the
following tentative definition (or rather characteristics?) of politeness.
Linguistic politeness is a partly routinized and partly creative language
manifestation of social values, finding its way of reflection at various
levels of language representation (phonic, grammatical, lexical, textual,
etc.) and reflecting interactional strategies by which interactants signal
their interpersonal supportiveness, i.e. their intention to consider each
other and satisfy shared expectations about cultural and situational
assumptions in order to avoid or at least soften face-threatening acts, to
create happy conditions for interaction and to avoid losing ones face.
1.3

Rules of Maxims?

So far we have more or less taken for granted the fact that the socalled communicatively regulative units of language (cf. LEECH, 1983),
including the expressions of politeness, are principle-controlled rather than
rule-governed. This was the standpoint of GRICE (1975) whose ideas i.e. that
communication is governed by norms and principles which have their basis
in human rationality found their continuation in SPERBER and WILSONs
Relevance Theory (1986) and its elaboration in LEECH (1983). It is also
the standpoint of BROWN and LEVINSON (1978), and TANNEN (1986).
Since there is hardly a linguist who does not refer to GRICE in this field of
research, Grices conception of his Co-operative Principle with the maxims
of quality, quantity, relation and manner will be taken for granted here.
As BLACKMORE (1992:26), however, pointed out, Grices main
concern was with the role of these maxims in the explanation of the way
speakers may communicate more than what they actually say.
There seems to be no doubt about the general validity of Grices statements,
the problem, however, seems to be how to find a basis for his maxims. LEECH
(1983;10) is of the opinion that the maxims have their basis in the nature of
society or culture. BLACKMORE (1992:26) is against such conclusions
arguing that then we would have a socio-cultural theory of communication
which will vary from society to society or from culture to culture. GRICE
thought of a possible social account of the maxims but was afraid of the loss
of their universality. (One of the possible answers to his problem seems to be
SPERBER and WILSONs (1986) Theory of Relevance.)

38

A methodologically different approach is advocated by R. LAKOFF

(see 1.3.1 for details), whose conceptualisation of politeness includes
rules of politeness. Her rules, though earlier in her conception likened to
syntactic rules (cf. LAKOFF, 1975:86ff.), are interpreted in her later studies
as a psychological reality, i.e. rules that are ingrained in the mind, learned
effortlessly in infancy (R. LAKOFF, 1990:24). The second part of her
characteristics, i.e. the effortless learning in infancy, gives evidence to a
pragmatic basis of her theorising.
1.3.1 R. Lakoffs Approach
R.LAKOFF advocates her findings on the basis of comparison with the
original proposal of GRICE.
In her article The logic of politeness; or minding your ps and qs
R.LAKOFF (1973) criticises the inadequacy of grammars based solely on
grammatical rules and argues that some kind of pragmatic rules should also
be incorporated.
In R. LAKOFF (1972) quoted by GREEN (1989:141) a question is
addressed why it is that it is considered to be polite for an English hostess to
offer a guest something to eat with
(1a) You must have some of this fruitcake., while
(1b) You should have some of this fruitcake. would be interpreted as
familiar, and the use of
(1c) You might have some of this fruitcake. would be considered rude.
Another question associated with the first one is why (1c), which is less
imposing, is not interpreted as a more polite offer.
The answers to the questions seem to lie in communicative strategies
preferred and the consequent language devices used: participants in a
conversation can choose to be polite, to avoid being rude, to do as they
please with utter disregard for others feelings or they can even exploit their
knowledge of the principles of politeness and be intentionally rude. This has
brought R. LAKOFF (1973) to different rules a speaker might follow in
choosing to be polite. As a result, she proposes the following two basic rules
which she prefers to call rules of pragmatic competence:
1. Be clear.
2. Be polite.

39

If the focus is on the message to be communicated, R. LAKOFF (op. cit.)

goes on arguing, the speaker will concentrate on the clarity of the utterances;
whereas if the status of the interlocutors and/or the situation is involved, then
the main concern will be the expression of politeness.
The following Fig. 1 is an attempt to summarise her findings.
Fig. 1

Rules of Pragmatic Competence

message

clarity

focus on

pragmatic rules
interlocutors

politeness

(Lakoffs conception of pragmatic rules)

The fact that both the above mentioned rules can be activated
simultaneously is manifested by her conclusion that sometimes clarity can be
politeness but on the other hand, she admits that the two rules are very often
incompatible. In those cases, where the rules are in conflict, then it is clarity
which is sacrificed: in everyday encounters it is more important not to offend
than to be clear (establishing and maintaining social relationship seems to be
hierarchically more important than conveying accurate information).
Having compared her results with those of GRICE, LAKOFF (op. cit.
p. 297) concludes by saying that all GRICEs conversational postulates fall
under her rule One, i.e. be clear. She seems to be right because Grices
maxims do relate mainly to clarity and orderliness in conversation and as
LAKOFF further argues, communication strictly adhering to such postulates
would be boring.
LAKOFFs second pragmatic rule Be polite comprises three partial
rules:
Rule 1. Dont impose.
Rule 2. Give options.
Rule 3. Make A(ddressee) feel good be friendly.

40

While the first rule is associated with formality and distance and is
appropriate to situations in which there is a difference in power and status
between the participants, her second rule is less formal and appropriate to
those situations in which the linguistic manifestation of politeness leaves
the decision-making choice to the addressee (e.g. by employing hedges or
other markers of hesitation). The last rule is appropriate for intimates or close
friends: to be friendly presupposes the usage of those language devices which
will make addressee feel happy.
In R. LAKOFF (1975:65) the rule of politeness is reformulated as
follows
1. Formality: keep aloof.
2. Deference: give options.
3. Camaraderie: show sympathy.
We can only agree with SIFIANOU (1992) that even this modified version
does not reflect the fact that politeness is broader and more complex than the
sum of these rules and cannot be captured in its integrity by any number of
rules of the type proposed by R. LAKOFF.
1.3.2 Brown and Levinsons Standpoint
The conception of BROWN & LEVINSON (B&L) has already been
outlined in section 1.1.0 in connection with positive and negative politeness.
Here, we would like to put the conception into the context of other
approaches and for potential readers convenience will repeat the core of the
theory again.
BROWN & LEVINSON (1978:287), when discussing the pros and cons
of the rule-based analysis proposed by R. LAKOFF, reached a diplomatic
solution: a rule-based analysis works very well for well-bounded ritualized
speech events like greetings but is problematic with less ritualized events. So
the main weakness of Lakoffs approach, as criticized by BROWN (1976:
246) is that by introducing the rules, she rigidifies the domain which is not
liable to rules.
BROWN & LEVINSON (1978) provide a slightly different perspective
on politeness phenomena. As explained in 1.1.0, they assume that all
competent adult members of a society know each other to have face, which

41

they characterise as public self-image that every member wants to claim for
himself (op. cit. p. 66) and politeness is seen as trade in this commodity.
Face consists of the freedom to act unimpeded (negative face) and the
satisfaction of having ones values approved of (positive face), cf. BROWN
& LEVINSON (1978: 67). To engage in normal interactions is to risk
losing face, maintaining face thus requires the co-operation of others. Thus
interlocutors trade in face and pay face whenever they must perform a
face-threatening act to accomplish their goals. On the basis of situation- and
culture-bound calculations, the speaker makes choices: s/he can act baldly
on record by e.g. ignoring apology or mitigation, or (b) s/he should choose
a positive politeness strategy of making addressee feel good, or in a more
extreme, (c) choose negative politeness strategy of hedging, apologizing,
offering options, etc. In case of a greater risk of face loss, Speaker (S)
may decide (d) to perform FTA by implicature (off-record) thus giving the
Addressee (A) the option of not acknowledging the intended FTA. (S) may
even decide (e) to forego the FTA altogether.
The risk factor is determined by a cumulative effect of the following three
universal social variables (B&L, 1978:79):
1. social distance (D) between the participants
2. relative power (P) between them and
3. the absolute ranking (R) of imposition in the particular culture.
There is no doubt that the sensitiveness to such universal social variables
is a necessary prerequisite to adequate translating from one culture to another,
cf. the variable (R) in particular.
Face in fact means social face, which is a dynamic variable (it can
be lost overnight) and, as apparent from the characteristics above, facesaving strategies have both a defensive (my face) and protective (your face)
orientation.
GOFFMAN (1972) characterises the process of face-saving in the
following way: To study face-saving is to study the traffic rules of social
interaction (op. cit.: 323)
As mentioned in the introductory section (cf. the perception of politeness),
while BROWN & LEVINSON (1978:67) claim that face and rational
action devoted to satisfying others face wants are universal properties,
WIERZBICKA (1991) believes that the concepts have been formulated with
regards to particular cultures and to think of the universal nature of these
concepts is near to ethnocentrism. Her claim seems to be supported by the
list of properties B. & L. believe to belong to either positive or negative face

42

and to face-threatening acts (or rather series of acts as I hope to prove in

connection with apologies in a separate section).
Note. Thinking of my own cultural background, I must say that WIERZBICKA
is right in being more tentative in her conclusions. In Czech culture, for example,
I would not be inclined to interpret straightforwardness with no hedging or
discourse markers to be a manifestation of less polite behaviour and consequently,
would not be afraid of losing my face in my community in such a situation.
(Perhaps speaking to the point might be of more importance in my culture.)

1.3.3 D. Tannens Arguments

In TANNEN (1984a:13) we are informed that R. LAKOFF in her later
work talks about points on a continuum of stylistic preferences rather than
rules of rapport. And this is precisely the view advocated by D.TANNEN
(1986:36). To TANNEN, LAKOFFs rules are not rules but rather senses we
have of the natural way to speak.
1.3.4 F. Coulmas Suggestion
Similar conclusion has been reached by Florian COULMAS (1981). He
seems to be the first to make it explicitly clear that if we use the term rule
in conversation, the status of the term has to be redefined.
1.3.5 Concluding Remarks
The conclusions that can be reached are the following:
(1) Conversational rules cannot be dealt with on the basis of syntax-oriented
rule concept.
(2) They are rules in their own right, for which pragmatic dimension is a
necessary part of their treatment.
(3) Since the term rule, as specified but not defined by the above theories,
is rather vague and misleading, it seems to be more functional to stick
to the well-established terms viz. principles and postulates with
subcategorization (if necessary) into maxims.

43

1.4

Cross-cultural Perspective

The keywords in the transmission of politeness in intercultural

communication seem to be appropriateness and adequacy which in the
traditional concept of functional linguistics might be covered by an umbrella
term of a functional equivalence (for an application see KNITTLOVs
1983, 1989, 1995 findings relevant for translatology) and many problems
arise from the difficulty to find appropriate ways of giving a foreign partner
adequate verbal (and non-verbal) signals. Moreover, such inadequacies are
said to be difficult to regulate because the very concept of politeness, as well
as the techniques and strategies of its manifestation are not fully shared by
the partners of such an intercultural communication (for details see e.g.
the study by IDE et al (1988) in which the concept of politeness is seen as
unilateral for American English communities and as two-dimensional in
Japanese).
Thus being interculturally polite and tactful is a complicated and
pragmatically bound skill that involves more than translating formulas
and routines from one language to another and like other skills learned
through social interaction it is open to misunderstanding between people
from different cultures because the processes can be regulated by different
conventions.
Close to Czech linguistic tradition in functional and systemic approach
is WHORFs (1956:13459; 23345) finding i.e. that many differences
between languages are better characterised in terms of patterns of differences
that operate across entire system. Such patterns of differences then influence
what is referred to by Whorf as fashions of speaking. As LUCY (1993:
89), however, pointed out, differences cannot, in fact, be discussed in
any serious way without some theory of commonality, i.e. a typological
framework within which differences can be characterised in a systematic
way. Such a typological framework, as LUCY points out, has to be sensitive
to the hypothesis of linguistic relativity which assigns special importance to
language variation.
Thus, for a successful projection into the world of other cultures, the
concept of possible universality has to be taken into consideration to balance
the specificity. This is the reason why the next section has been inserted.

44

1.4.1 Universality of Politeness

In many studies the discussion of linguistic politeness raises the problem
of universality, either with the focus on the typological approach (cf.
GREENBERGs 1963 universals) or the underlying principle approach
(based on Chomskyan universals, understood as a modular set of abstract
principles which interact to give core grammars from which languages may
be derived by means of setting linguistic parameters in various ways). None
of these principles, however, has been shown to be relevant for the universals
of linguistic politeness.
BROWN & LEVINSON (1978:91), though admitting the impact of
three universal social variables on the perception of politeness (see in 1.3.2),
believe that to posit highly specific and diverse universal rules is to invent
a problem to be explained, rather than to explain it.
It has been, however, convincingly argued (R. LAKOFF, 1973 among
others) that politeness is a universal linguistic variable and every language
is said to provide a stock of conventionalised means for fulfilling these
functions. The ways in which cultural-bound restrictions are imposed can
vary from one socio-cultural system to another.
COULMAS (1981:81) borrows HYMES example with thank you to
illustrate the case. HYMES observed that while in American English thank
you is still mainly a formula for the expression of gratitude, British thank
you seems on its way to marking formally the segments of certain interactions,
with only residual attachment to thanking in some cases (1961:69).
This brings us to the conclusion that surface similarities may conceal
significant differences as regards underlying motivations.
WIERZBICKA (1991) believes that all the language devices that explicitly
represent interpersonal interaction are transferable into universal semantic
primitives by means of which we can state cross-cultural similarities or
differences associated with the interactional level of language representation
(cf. her basic argument, i.e. To compare meanings one has to be able to state
them., op. cit.: 6). Her metalanguage, by which she tries to use a step-by-step
procedure in order to grasp the meanings directly involved in the interaction
between speaker (I) and hearer (You), is a technical language referred to
by the author as the lexicon of the natural semantic metalanguage. The
typical primitives of the metalanguage include pronouns (I, you), verbs, such
as want, dont want, say, think, know; adjectives, such as good,
bad, linkers like, because, etc. (for details see Wierzbicka, 1991:

45

8). Such notions as intimacy, indirectness, cordiality, objectivity,

sincerity, etc. are filtered through the matrix of metalanguage statements.
Thus, for example, her principle of cordiality, as valid for Polish is described
in the following fashion (op.cit.p.122)
I feel something good towards you
I want good things to happen to you
I want to be with you.
The tendency of the Japanese to neutralise strong emotions with an
inscrutable face, is characterised in the same metalanguage as
I dont want to say what I feel
someone could feel something bad because of this. (p. 127).
Though the metalanguage gives the impression of subjective statements
from time to time, the message behind, as I understand it, is quite relevant
for cross-cultural treatment of universal properties of respective languages:
i.e. do not be mislead by identical labels, try to transform the essence of the
intended speech acts into the metalanguage and compare.
One of such comparisons may be of interest for English-Czech interface:
in Czech I say what I feel is preferred to the English I say what I think I
should say. This might help us in understanding the notions of directness,
sincerity and perhaps cordiality as well.
An interesting universal feature of politeness (i.e. universal in the weak
sense of the word) might be traced in the presence in many languages of
the first person possessive pronoun with the expressions of endearment. It
does not seem to be surprising if we take into consideration the ego-centric
organisation of language (cf. LANGACKERs 1991 conception of space
grammar later referred to as cognitive grammar by him). The following
examples might illustrate the possibilities
English my dear, my love
Czech mj mil/drah (but also mil mj [dear-my]) with the word order
permutation impossible in English; Greek angele mu (my angel), ayapi mu
(my love) (the example is borrowed from SIFIANOU, 1992:69-70).
The two-word endearments may lead one to a hypothesis that the first
person singular possessive pronoun might be a signal of intimacy (cf. also the
restricted frequency of occurrence of our in this function), which collocates
with the expressions of endearment to modify the scale of possibilities. In
cognitive approach this might lead us to the conclusion that in cross-cultural
shaping of politeness there exists a partially universal cognitive frame, i.e.

46

intimacy + endearment
Language manifestations of the frame can vary either in the delicacy
of the expressions or in the semantic zones activated, cf. my duck
*moje kachno. As KNITTLOV (1995) pointed out, such findings have far
reaching consequences for translatology.
To conclude this section on universality, we would like to refer to HYMES
(1986:7980) who pointed out that the existence of surface similarities is
worth knowing but one needs to know as well the ways in which such forms
are selected and grouped together with others in cultural practices.
1.4.2 Politeness across Cultures
We will approach the problem from a negative side, asking what happens
if someone violates the communicants expectations. It is a generally
shared knowledge that native speakers are more tolerant to grammatical
mistakes than to culture bumps or clashes. A nice example of such a
clash is described in DOI (1973). The author, a Japanese scholar, describes
his adaptation difficulties he experienced during his stay in the USA. The
example is borrowed from COULMAS (1981:8) and runs as follows:
The please help yourself that Americans use so often had a rather unpleasant
ring in my ears before I became used to English conversation. The meaning, of
course, is simply please take what you want without hesitation, but literally
translated it has somehow a flavour of nobody else will help you, and I could
not see how it came to be an expression of good will.
Doi (1973:13)

The models of politeness must be so deeply rooted in the matrix of ones

mother tongue that even after years spent abroad (and sharing different
cultural setting) people tend to use strategies typical of the community
they acquired their mother tongue in. As a result, their second language is
endowed with a special flavour of a different scale of delicacy applied and/
or unexpected frequency preferred. To give an illustrative example, we can
think of the novels by Kasuo Ishiguro (e.g. The Remains of the Day.) His
brilliant English in which Japanese cultural setting is described, follows at
many places Japanese strategies of politeness (e.g. to make apologies where
no such acts are anticipated in the English speaking community).

47

GREEN (1989) in her functional approach to cross-cultural phenomena

of politeness pointed out that e.g. the absence of honorific particles or affixes,
typical of Japanese, does not mean that there is no way in other language
to compensate for it. She refers to R. LAKOFFs (1972) case study of the
sequences with modal verbs, discussed here in 1.3.1.
Though the society as a whole is not believed to be uniform in its
politeness perception and manifestation (HARRIS, 1984:175), and, in
gender studies, women are reported to tend to value positive politeness
strategies and informality more than men (LAKOFF, 1975, HARRIS, 1984,
TRUDGILL, 1974, Chapter Four), I agree with SIFIANOU (1992:39) that
we can distinguish societies according to the ethos predominant in daily
interactions. From this perspective, I am tempted to say that the English and
Czech communities differ in relation to the way in which each views the
notion of face, or, if we want to apply BROWN &LEVINSONs terminology,
in the significance attached to the two components of face, i.e. positive and
negative.
Given this assumption, we might characterise the English community
as placing a higher value on privacy and individuality, i.e. negative face
manifestations, whereas Czechs seem to value more involvement and ingroup relations, i.e. aspects of positive face. (In this respects Czechs are
closer to Greeks, as reported by SIFIANOU, 1992:41, and Poles, as reported
by WIERZBICKA, 1991:121).
This, however, is a rough subcategorisation that needs elaboration.
One way of how to go down the scale of delicacy might be to trace the
degree of convention and elaboration of the strategies used. BROWN &
LEVINSON (1978:135) reached a conclusion that the English culture, with
its negative politeness has the most elaborate and the most conventionalised
set of linguistic strategies for FTA redress; it is the stuff that fills the etiquette
books.
Such conclusions are quite understandable if we take into consideration the
social context as specified by COULMAS (1981). In the introductory section of
his collection of papers on conversational routine, COULMAS (op. cit. p. vii)
explains the need for a new mode of conversation as a consequence of the rise of
a more or less enlightened bourgeoisie during the first half of the 19th century in
many European countries.

48

Conversation, according to him, seemed to become a name of a new game,

which at the same time was a passport to social interaction and a passport to
higher society (cf. the reflection in literature known as Eliza Doolittles case).
The success in this game was based on the ability to apply, beside other skills,
the knowledge of a microsystem of linguistic etiquette to which we would like to
pay attention in the following subsection to prepare ground for the perception of
English and Czech differences.

1.4.2.1 Linguistic Etiquette2

The perception of linguistic etiquette as a partial system of stereotypical
speech models and formulae, is said to be rooted in interactional rituals
(GOODY, 1978), and has been recognised as a manifestation of anti-aggressive
ethic (Greek philosophers), i.e. as a suppression of an in-group aggression.
VEHLOV (1994:48) characterises speech etiquette (cf. her preference
for speech rather than linguistic etiquette) as a conventionalised
and verbalised part of the sum of ethic habits of a given community in
a given period, and emphasises the interplay of verbal and non-verbal
communication.
The ritualised nature does not exclude the relatively open character of
the microsystem (sensitive to new societal needs), but on the other hand, the
tradition-bound and ritualised nature contributes to the stability of linguistic
etiquette in conveying attitudes, values, indicating social status, empathy,
social distance, etc. The stereotypes lead to predictability and predictability
leads to expectations that can be met, neglected or violated. If violated, then
the verbal and/or non-verbal behaviour is interpreted as signalling various
degrees of impoliteness and thus the violation of a linguistic etiquette. The
process can be schematised as follows:
met
stereotypes > predictability > expectations

neglected
violated

Cf. also the blend netiquette as a new coinage used to refer to the high-tech
phenomenon of Internet-etiquette or, simply, the interaction on the Net (Eelen,
2001:118).

49

The books on linguistic etiquette, typical of particular cultural communities,

may be safe guides to an etiquette based on a normative principle (cf. the
situation in Japan and the documents published by the Ministry of Education
there in 1941 on basic points of etiquette, as quoted by COULMAS, 1989),
good guides in the communities less norm-oriented in this field, but the best
guide seems to be our life-long experience with this elegant but very fragile
microsystem. Maybe, in my own culture, we tend to be more pragmatically
rooted in this respect, believing that politeness depends on multimodal
communicative skills that are learned through social interaction. This can
be one of the reasons why, even in the changed political situation Czechs,
unlike Poles, do not seem to be so much inclined to writing about linguistic
etiquette. This finding has to be taken into consideration when thinking in
terms of cross-cultural pragmatics (the way WIERZBICKA, 1991 does).
There is no doubt that a cross-cultural comparison of the phenomena of
politeness is methodologically easier if the analyst has a guide on linguistic
etiquette at his/her disposal, and there is no wonder that many references
in comparative studies are made (at least in the preliminary phase of
comparison) to such documents (cf. COULMAS, 1989). Japanese with its
normative linguistic etiquette is a standard source-language for those who
are capable of comparing Japanese, American and other Western culture (cf.
the unpublished papers from the workshop on Politeness in Freiburg am B. in
1989). As mentioned before, Poland is more sensitive to the microsystem of
a linguistic etiquette and besides organising conferences on the topic (cf. the
one held in Karpacz in 1990), publishes the results in collections of papers
under the general theme of Language and Culture.
On the Czech linguistic scene, the occurrence of such studies is rather
rare. Two recent publications recommended to me by our bohemists were by
M. VEHLOV (1994a, 1994b), one of them focussing on Politeness and
Speech Etiquette, the other on Silence as a Phenomenon of Communication
(this essay will be referred to in section 1.5.2). The impact of linguistic
etiquette on translating is treated in KUFNEROV, et al. 1994.
To sum up the findings on cross-cultural perspective, we could perhaps
borrow one of the subtitles of WIERZBICKAs (1991) book to indicate the
main problem: same labels, different values. Such findings have far-reaching
consequences for second language acquisition, contrastive and comparative
studies, and last but not least for translatology (cf. KNITTLOV, 1995,

50

KUFNEROV et. al., 1994) and justify the need of a systematic attention
paid to cross-cultural pragmatics (WIERZBICKA, 1991).
When trying to think of the English-Czech interface and its consequences
for comparative studies, contrastive studies, translating, interpreting, etc.,
we hope not to be far from reality to state that in technical terms, English
is more routinised in the manifestation of linguistic politeness, while in
Czech creativeness of various kinds is a welcome change in communicative
stereotypes and is interpreted as such by the addressee. That is to say that we
do not insist on elaborate and conventionalised forms so much as the English
(according to BROWN and LEVINSON,1978) do.
The trouble with such generalisations, however, is that there may always
be exceptions to the general tendency, since there are speakers and speakers.
To think of a possible illustration, we could take the English phrase How
are you?
and think of the possible (context-bound) variation in Czech, such as
Jak se mte? Jakpak se mte? Tak jak se da? Jak se dnes mme? Jak jsme
se dnes vyspali? up to a jocularly formal Jak se rate vynachzet?
The same English phrase can serve as an illustrative example of a part
of a routinised conversation sequence ( an adjacency pair) in which even the
second part, i.e. the answer, is rather fixed, i.e. How are you? Im fine, thank
you. (and you?).
In Czech, the question, besides capable of having a phatic function, can
have (and very often does have) the status of a real information-seeking
question and consequently may be followed by an explanation concerning
the addressees health conditions, family situation, etc.
This is what WIERZBICKA roughly specified as the difference between
I say what I think I should say valid for English, and
I think what I feel as valid for Polish and, to a certain extent, perhaps for
Czech.
Thinking of the strategies applied, Czechs may be said to be more
straightforward (with the preference for speaking to the point principle) and,
consequently, straightforwardness is perceived as a possible manifestation
of politeness in those situations, in which the English try to be polite by
being indirect: either by means of hedging, high frequency of occurrence
of conversational gambits (e.g. well, oh, now) open to context-sensitive
interpretations but also by means of a choice within a scale of indirect
grammatical constructions (e.g. whimperatives, tentative meanings of modals,
e.g. could, might, etc.).

51

Thus, while Posate se! or Sednte si! when supported by an inviting

gesture and/or supportive intonation, sounds appropriate in Czech, in English,
the usage of a mere imperative would be far from appropriate, not to speak
about cordiality or deference deficit.
Note. WIERZBICKA (1991:27), when discussing cross-cultural politeness,
points out that it is not the imperative mood that is inappropriate in English, but
rather an action verb in the imperative mood. Accordingly, Have a seat. may be an
informal offer, while Sit. sounds like a command addressed to a dog. Sit down is
not felicitous either. (Interestingly, the inappropriateness of the English imperative
in the manifestation of linguistic politeness seems to be comparable to the usage
of infinitives in Czech in issuing commands of general, unspecified validity, such
as Ticho bt! Okamit odejt! [To be quiet. To leave immediately.] The impact on
the addressee (who is addressed in a tricky way) is far from being polite. In Czech,
we could also think in this connection of the locative future-oriented utterances of
the type Tady bude ticho! [Here will be silence].

There is, however, a dimension in Czech which has no straightforward

counterpart in English in signalling empathy (and polite concern) towards
the addressee, i.e. the high frequency of occurrence of an unattached dative,
such as
Czech: Tak se mi tam neztra.
(Particle- Pron[reflex]-Pron[personal,dative]-AdvPlace- Verb [imp Neg])
English: I dont want you lost there.
To continue in this survey of ad hoc comparisons, we could perhaps say,
that the English are more tentative in formulating their opinions in general
(cf. a relevant contribution to this field by I. POLDAUF, 1964) and more
tentative in formulating offered advice in particular (cf. the seldom use in
English of such introductory phases as I advise you., which in Czech is far
from being stiff and formal but rather similarly to Polish (Wierzbicka, op. cit.
p. 32) is interpreted as a colloquial supportive phrase).
Moreover, there is a strong tendency in English (POLDAUF, 1964) to
signal this form of tentativeness by means of explicit introductory signals
(I think, I hope, I suppose) to give addressees interpretative keys (including
the politeness signal) to the following message.

52

In shaping the messages, the English-Czech interface can be seen from

the following perspectives (that are far from an exhaustive treatment):
1. In Czech spontaneity is welcome and emotional involvement is seen as
a supportive accompanying feature of politeness.
2. In English dispassionate neutral objectivity and detachment from ones
ideas is preferred to mask ones own feelings.
3. Czechs do not seem to practice so many exercises in sincerity (of the
type Nice to see you + a smiling mask with no sign of involvement) and
with a very low frequency of occurrence of hedging signals, may sound
very straightforward and consequently impolite to the English ear, as
confirmed by the first impressions of my native English colleagues.
As apparent, a whole book could be written on such a delicate but crossculturally relevant topic. And this was the reason why in the introductory
section of my study I tried to narrow the scope to two strategies only
(i.e. addressing and apologising) and their language manifestations. The
description above, however, should support the validity of the requirement of
BARNLUND (1975b:140) quoted by WIERZBICKA (1991:129):
People must become capable of empathy, of being able to project
themselves into the assumptive world, the cultural unconscious, of an
alien culture.
1.5

An Interplay of Strategies

1.5.1 Verbal and Non-Verbal Communication

In section 0.2 we mentioned out primary interest in verbal communication.
Here we would like to put verbal communication into the framework of other
options and think of it as a socially contextualised possibility.
When communicating, we try to make use of various techniques by
which to turn our illocutions into addressees perlocutions to use the
speech-act vocabulary and this general statement seems to be also valid
for the perception and manifestation of politeness. Thus, besides making e.g.
preferences within verbal communication, as to the type of communicative
channel (spoken or written), and degree of directness (seen as a cline from
direct to indirect), we opt for various configurations of verbal and non-verbal
communication, such as using supportive gestures in spoken communication
to reinforce a polite word, phrase, exchange, etc. (This strategy is so

53

strongly embedded in out consciousness that many people use gestures

even while speaking on the phone.) A less addressee-friendly strategy is a
verbal communication with gestures that are counter-productive to the
simultaneous verbal communication (e.g. Nice to see you + rolling ones eyes
in an aside grimace). This strategy is, ironically speaking, a safe guide to
impoliteness when spotted by the addressee and a symptom of insincere
manoeuvring.
Another possibility, though rare when compared to the above mentioned
ones, is the use of gestures substituting for verbal communication, e.g.
bowing and showing direction to gesture a guest into his/her room. If we
continue in thinking of peripheral cases (i.e. peripheral, because mostly
restricted to well-defined communicative situations), we should mention
verbal communication with nearly no gestures or a ritualised verbal
communication with ritualised gestures (religious rituals).
Note. The label body language has been avoided here because in gender studies
it is often restricted to conveying sexual messages. For the vagueness and
unintentionality, also the term body movement has been found inadequate.
Gesture, on the other hand, indicates a kind of an intentional, ritualised and
culture bound message, defined in Collins Cobuild (CC:606) as
a movement that you make with a part of your body, especially your hands or
head, to express emotion or information either instead of speaking or while you
are speaking.

Thinking of my English friends, I would extend the definition by including

grimacing (not only with disgust but also to hide joy).
With WIERZBICKAs (1991) criticism in mind, I am tempted to say
that the Collins Cobuild definition is far from being Anglo-centric in this
respect.
In written communication, the gestures are usually compensated for by
metamessages of the type He kindly gestured me into my room.
This is just an illustrative survey of selected possibilities that could go
down the scale of delicacy in many respects but most of all should take into
consideration a rather neglected phenomenon of communication, i.e. silence
and its contribution to politeness.
Communicative functions of silence will be discussed in the next section
with the hope that
(1) this might be our modest contribution to the interplay of communicative
strategies, and
(2) the findings will enable us to modify the previous survey into a more
relevant form.
54

1.5.1 Silence as a communicative strategy

Although the form of silence is always the same, its interpretation, i.e. as
a specific act of silence, will vary according to the social context in which it is
used as a zero form of communication. Thus, if I keep silent during a lecture
of a distinguished guest, my action is likely to be interpreted as polite. If, on
the other hand, I refrain from communication with my colleagues, I might be
accused of being impolite, if not rude or out of line. In both the cases, I was
silent, because I remained silent, i.e. I wanted not to speak and this
intentional act of remaining silent is the very essence of various context-sensitive
interpretations of polite silence (including taboo silences operating in some
cultures). D. TANNEN (1990:260) shows that silence can be used to diffuse
potential conflict, (i.e. silence occurs at those points where information to be
given can be explosive).
HERMAN (1995:98) points out that within speech events
there is the silence of listening, or the silence of participation as in
Quaker meeting, and active silences as in inferencing procedures used in
communication
(cf. also BASSOs (1977) study on the role of silence in Western Apache
settlement of Cibecue). As BASSO (1977:69) pointed out, a knowledge of
when not to speak may be as basic to the production of culturally acceptable
behavior as a knowledge of what to say.
Consequently, an adequate ethnography of communication should focus
not only on the verbal repertoires but rather, as HYMES (1962) suggested,
should specify those situations in which members of a particular community
decide to refrain from verbal behaviour altogether. To illustrate the case,
BASSO (op. cit. 7172) offers a list of situations in which Western Apache
settlement of Cibecue (near the Fort Apache Indian Reservation in Arizona)
opts for silence:
1. Meeting strangers.
2. Courting (during the initial phase, because silence is interpreted as a sign
of modesty and those who speak betray their previous experience with
men).
3. Children coming home (i.e. boarding school children who have not seen
their parents for a longer period of time, and their parents, being silent
because they do not speak for fear their children are more educated and
lost contacts with their homes).

55

4. Getting cussed out (when someone shouts insults or criticism at his/her

addressee).
5. Being with people who are sad (e.g. when somebody died). Talking about
the dead, on the contrary, is thought of as reinforcing the sadness of those
who were close to the deceased.
6. Being with someone for whom they sing (i.e. during curing ceremonials,
when the medicine man commences to chant to neutralise the sicknesscausing power embedded in the patient).
Having analysed the above mentioned situations, BASSO (op. cit.: 83)
came to the conclusion that keeping silent among the Western Apache is
a response to uncertainty and unpredictability in social relations.
Though BASSOs study cannot account for silence behaviour in
other cultures, his way of analysis might inspire the ethnographers of
communication to fill in the gap in cross-cultural studies, since the relevance
of silence behaviour in other cultures will undoubtedly be guided by different
or at least partly different principles.
In our culture, such remarks as Dont you know when to keep quiet? or
Dont talk until you are introduced., or Remember now, there will be no
talking in the church/cinema/theatre point to the fact that our decision to
speak may be conditioned by the character of the activities we are supposed to
perform on our human stage. Such sayings as Silence is golden or Silence
is a virtue try to encourage especially younger members of the community
to act accordingly on the road to cultural competence.
As mentioned before, one of the recent studies devoted to politeness
phenomena in our cultural setting is the study by M. VEHLOV (1994b) in
which an interdisciplinary approach to silence is used to grasp the repertory
of communicative functions signaled by silence. The author emphasizes
a context-sensitive nature of silence, giving silence the status of a code
without expression (p. 80) and reminds us of the difficulty to quantify as well
demonstrate particular occurrences of silence. Similarly to direct and indirect
verbal communication, VEHLOV tries to see parallels in direct silence
(cf. the intention Im not going to talk to you) and indirect silence (i.e. an
inaccurate silence, such as dementi written after an inadequately long period
of time).
The parallels, however, do not seem to reveal comparable communicative
functions, and the distinction, suggested by the author later in her study, i.e.
intentional vs. unintentional silence seems to be more adequate for grasping
the majority of the communicative functions suggested in the study. Inspiring

56

in VEHLOVs conception is the distinction of silence as a monitoring

strategy (e.g. in turn-taking) and silence as a communicative intention with
a variable of informativeness (i.e. silence as a reaction to the absence of
knowledge, silence as a consequence of emotions, silence as an avoidance to
tell lies, silence as a manifestation of grief, a lack of argument, etc.).
Once given the status of a code without expression, silence, like
other codes of communication, is conditioned by identical perception of
communicative norms and identical rules of interaction. Understood in this
way, silence can be a relevant contribution to the spectrum of configurations
mentioned before, i.e. a silent companion of other forms of communication
streaming to politeness.
To conclude this chapter, Iwould like to emphasise that all the labels used
in connection with various manifestations of linguistic etiquette (greetings,
requesting, congratulating, apologising, making compliments, etc.) as well as
all the strategies associated with the manifestation of politeness, have one in
common, namely their sensitiveness to social context of a given community.
If there is a part of linguistic etiquette, in which the social semiotic of
language is quite explicit, it is social deixis, as reflected in terms of address/
forms of address or simply, in addressing, to which attention will be paid in
the next Chapter Two.

57

Chapter Two
POLITENESS AND SOCIAL DEIXIS
2.0.

Introduction

The approach in this chapter will be from theory to practical application

and within the theory, from a broader theoretical framework, in which
language is seen as a manifestation of social semiotics, to a narrower scope
of social deixis seen as a starting point for the application of two dimensions
fundamental to the analysis of all social life, i.e. the dimension of power and
the dimension of solidarity (BROWN & GILMAN, 1960, repr.1977:252,
see 2.2.1 for details) as projected into the choice of the devices used in
addressing.
Our contribution will be seen not so much in the mapping of the field
and surveying the rather static figures and grids supposed to reflect the
possible configurations of polite exchanges in addressing (thus creating a
matrix of linguistic etiquette in this domain of social interaction; cf. a clear
description of the rules of addresses in American English in ERVIN-TRIPP
(1969), according to which e.g. Cardinal is addressed as Your Excellency,
U.S. President as Mr. President, Priest Father (+ Last name), Nun Sister
(+ religious name), Physician Doctor (+ Last name), etc. + a specific set of
rules in case the Last name is unknown; cf. also 2.2.5.2, Note 3); instead, we
would like to focus on the dynamic aspect of the interplay of the semantics
of power and solidarity during conversational exchanges with the aim to
emphasise the need of a functional, context-sensitive approach to the forms
of address as negotiated between/among the interlocutors during the process
of interaction.
Out of the two possible perspectives proposed by ERVIN-TRIPP (1973),
see 2.2.4 for details, I decided to opt for tracing the interplay of both, i.e. how
the syntagmatic axis of co-occurrence rules of address can be activated in
the corpus to support the paradigmatic axis of alternation rules and how the
dynamism of their interaction can contribute to the oscillation between the
semantics of power (distance) and the semantics of solidarity.
Having outlined the procedure, I will now introduce the Hallidayian
theoretical framework which has become the main theoretical basis in my
formulation of hypotheses as well as their practical verification.

59

2.1

Language as Social Semiotic

Linguistic approaches have long recognised that texts are both interactive
and situated within particular social context (cf. SWEETs 1888 findings
quoted by HALLIDAY 1978:1, i.e. that language originates spontaneously
in the individual but like that of poetry and the arts, its development is
social; or SAUSSUREs frequently quoted words that Language is a social
fact (in HALLIDAY, 1978:1), but also BERNSTEIN, 1971, LEECH, 1983,
HALLIDAY & HASSAN, 1985, GEIS, 1995, etc.).
HALLIDAY expresses the conception in the following way:
By their everyday acts of meaning, people act out of the social structure,
affirming their own statuses and roles, and establishing and transmitting
the shared systems of values and knowledge. [HALLIDAY, 1978:2]
His approach to language as social semiotics, with man as social man
born to a particular society, and sensitive in his everyday encounters to the
social matrix seems to support LABOVs (1972:183) doubts about the
adequacy of the term sociolinguistics. To LABOV, sociolinguistics as a
term is misleading, since it implies somehow that there might be linguistics
which does not consider language socially. Thus, for Labov, similarly to
Halliday, the study of linguistics proper is in fact sociolinguistic in nature.
(This finding seems to be in opposition to Chomskyan core linguistics
(CHOMSKY, 1976), where language is looked upon as a product of the mind/
brain, a genetically endowed system; cf. also the discussion concerning the
possibility of locating a grammar gene, in PINKER, 1994.)
HILL et al. (1986) use the Japanese term wakimae, translated (roughly)
as discernment, by which they refer to the almost automatic observation of
socially-agreed rules which apply to both verbal and non-verbal behaviour
into which Japanese children are socialised (WATTS, 1990:11).
Moreover, as IDE (1982) pointed out, in Japanese, status- and socialdistance markers are encoded grammatically.
Having opted for the analysis of a principle-controlled domain of language
manifestation and communicatively-regulative devices participating in
the manifestation of politeness, I will follow HALLIDAYs conception of
language as social semiotic, his hypothesis about three basic determinants
of the text, i.e. field, tenor and mode (HALLIDAY et al. 1964) as well as
his findings about the links existing between those determinants and his
three components of the semantic system of language such that ideational

60

component is primarily activated by field, intepersonal component by tenor,

and textual component by mode of discourse. (HALLIDAY, 1978:63), cf. the
following Figure 1.
Fig. 1
Components of the Semantic System and Determinants of the Text
Activating them
ideational
interpersonal
textual

field of discourse
tenor of discourse
mode of discourse

In cross-cultural comparison, the parameter of social awareness,

or what has been called pragmatic salience by ERRINGTON (1985),
reported in WOOLARD (1992), will also be taken into consideration (cf.
the correspondence with the concepts of stereotypes, markers, and sets of
evaluations in LABOV, 1972).
The following section on social deixis should reflect our modest attempt
at verifying the above mentioned hypotheses on a selected sample of social
deixis, as manifested by the cross-language comparison of addressing looked
upon as language manifestations of HALLIDAYs interpersonal component
activated primarily by the text determinant referred to as tenor.
Consequently, politeness phenomena will be looked upon as language
reflection of strategies for maintaining or changing interpersonal
relations.
2.2.

Social Deixis

Pointing via language is one of the most basic things we do with

utterances (YULE 1998:9).
In SIFIANOU (1992) deixis is understood to denote
a word or a phrase which directly and categorically refers to temporal,
locational or personal characteristics of a communicative event and its
participants, cf. here/there, now/then, former/latter, I/you.
[SIFIANOU 1992:56]
(these are referred to as place deixis, time deixis, and discourse deixis
respectively; for a detailed discussion see LEVINSON 1983). In YULE (1998:
9) deictic expressions, also referred to as indexicals, are subcategorised into

61

spatial deixis, temporal deixis, and person deixis (which is said to operate on
a three-part division of I-you-third person.) And it is the deictic categories
of speaker, addressee and other/s that in many languages are endowed with
social status marking. That is to say that there exist features which mark social
identity of the interlocutors and the social relationship which holds between
them (cf. e.g. the ty/vy distinction or its modified version Ty/Vy in Czech
and similar manifestations in other languages which will be touched upon
in a separate section). As for the third person (i.e. other/s) it is not a direct
participant in the basic face-to-face communication, and therefore remains
distal. As a distal form of personal deixis, it can be used in reference to a
second person for ironic or humorous purposes, as the following example
from YULE (1998:11) might demonstrate
Would his highness like some coffee?
(said by a busy wife to her rather lazy husband).
Note. In Czech, when telling anecdotes or jokes about the Jews, there is a nice
configuration of a nominative form of the LN (last name) + 3rd person plural
reference to a single addressee used to achieve a humorous effect and preserve the
air of anecdotes about the Jews, as in

Roubek, poslouchaj m dobe, slyeli u o tom zdraen?

[nom.]
[3rd pers. pl.]
[3rd pers. pl.]
[Roubek-listen(they)-to-me-well-have they-heard-about the price increase?]
To sum up this section we might perhaps conclude by saying that the
deictic field of language, including social deixis, is highly context-sensitive,
since deictic expressions very often take their meaning and reference from
the context.
2.2.1 Semantics of Power and Solidarity
As mentioned in the introductory section to this chapter, BROWN &
GILMAN (1960, reprint 1977:252), when analysing the role of pronouns
(prototypically symbolised as T(tu)/V(vos) exchanges in social deixis),
emphasised close association of these pronouns with two dimensions
fundamental to the analysis of all social life the dimension of power and
the dimension of solidarity. They speak about the semantics of power and
solidarity by which they understand the co-variation between the pronoun

62

used and the objective relationship existing between speaker and addressee
(op. cit.: 252).
Thus, if the T/V distinction is taken as a generic designator for a familiar
(intimate) and formal (non-intimate) pronoun respectively, in the power
semantics, due to the fact that power is a non-reciprocal relationship (i.e.
both participants of communication cannot have power in the same area of
behaviour), the superior says T and receives V.
(In Medieval Europe, as the authors go on explaining, the nobility said T to the
common people while receiving V; between equals, pronominal address was
reciprocal but equals of higher classes exchanged V, equals of lower classes T.
The use of V in the singular always connotated a person of a higher status and
functioned as a mark of elegance.).

The solidarity semantics is symmetrical and the T for solidarity is said

to be supported by the frequency of contact, objective similarities, the air of
like-mindedness, etc.
BROWN & GILMAN (op. cit. 258) emphasise that it is the creation of
the like-mindedness that seems to be the core of the solidarity semantics.
Interesting for linguistic politeness are their conclusions about a set of
residuals of the power relation, e.g. the right to initiate the reciprocal
T belongs to the participant who has a better power-based claim to say
T without reciprocation. Also the suggestion of solidarity comes more
gracefully from the older, the richer, the employer, the female, etc.
Historically, the dimension of solidarity is said to have largely won over
power and is represented as a single dimension distinguishing mutual V from
mutual T, with the scope of T having been expanded (op. cit. 261), cf. their
examples with mountaineers who above a certain critical altitude shift to
mutual T, similarly with people who share a hobby, take a trip together, etc.
Generally speaking, their model, though thought-provoking, is rather
static and does not reflect the dynamism of everyday encounters, in which
power and solidarity operate as context-sensitive variables.
As a result, the model of social deixis signalled by the first moves in
communication need not necessarily be the model the communication ends
up with ( for the analysis of the corpus-based examples, see the application
section of this chapter). As the following example might illustrate, an
important decision-making factor in the interpretation of the semantics of
power and solidarity (as reflected in addressing) is the immediate contextual
embedding, as in the greeting + address sequences, in which the choice of

63

the greeting can move the address towards one or the other side of the scale
of solidarity/power semantics. This is quite apparent in the following databased sample
Call I/10 (= Show I, call 10), cf.
1M (the number stands for exchange one, two, M = Moderator,
C = Caller)
1M hello Frank
2C good afternoon Irv
3M good afternoon, sir
5M yes sir
Legend: the first offer of solidarity by the M(oderator), (hello + T-exchange
Frank) is only partly reciprocated by the C(aller) in (good afternoon, Irv).
Accordingly, the M, sensitive to the suggestion of a partial distance (hello>
good afternoon), reciprocates by total distance (good afternoon, sir) and
follows the established (negotiated) pattern of addressing, as apparent from
5M (sir). In BROWN & LEVINSONs conception explained in the next
section, such a strategy would be described as a switch from intimate
into non-intimate stuff. The example is at the same time illustrative of the
dynamism of a situation-bound negotiation in addressing. (For details see
Case Study in 2.2.6.2.)
2.2.2 Dominance and Distance
In BROWN & LEVINSONs (1987:45-47) universal symbolism of
exchange, the elaborateness of the ritual depends on the relationship of
dominance and distance (understood as social distance between the
participants in communication): the so-called intimate-stuff responses may
be expected in those forms of addressing in which dominance and social
distance are minimal, while the non-intimate stuff in those cases where the
dominance and social distance are maximal. Practically, however, this cannot
be the case, because dominance is not a symmetric relationship, i.e. a person
with a higher social status can give intimate stuff while the person with
a lower status must respond by giving non-intimate stuff responses.
The balance between the two strategies might be expected to be culturespecific.

64

2.2.3 Politeness in Addressing

Forms of address have received considerable attention in scholarly
literature, as apparent from an intensive bibliography concerned exclusively
with personal address usage, as published by PHILIPSEN and HUSPEK
(1985).
In tracing the literature on addressing, one cannot but conclude that the
forms of address are simply equated with politeness (BRAUN, 1988:50).
It might be the case that the high frequency of occurrence of the forms of
address, together with the fact that they can be easily observed, has contributed
to their recognition as very salient indicators of status relationship.
Sometimes only a vague explanation is given, e.g. that sincerely adequate
behaviour, as manifested by addressing, results in politeness. WATTS (1989a)
emphasises the idea of a complex interplay of various factors participating in
the linguistic manifestation of politeness and to him, addressing, which is a
socialised form of verbal behaviour, does not belong to politeness proper but
rather to what he refers to as politic social behaviour.
According to BRAUN (1988:35), T-forms, first names, terms of
endearment, and certain kinship terms are used to express intimacy,
juniority, low social status or inferiority, whereas V-forms and titles are
used to express distance, seniority, high social status, or superiority. In
our analysis we will follow the dynamic approach advocated by WATTS
(1989a) and look at the prototypical characteristics suggested by BRAUN
as a basic matrix into which more elaborate, context-sensitive patterns are
embroidered.
2.2.4 Rules of Address
Similarly to the pragmatically oriented linguists who are willing to accept
the status of rules of a special kind to refer to conversational maxims, there
are sociolinguists (ERVIN-TRIPP, 1973, BELL, 1976, DITTMAR,1976)
who, though admitting a great variety of situational features with which
our linguistic choices have to be correlated, are willing to think of rules
of address. Language users are generally expected to acquire such rules
informally by observing others and abstracting the appropriate patterns.
To think in Hallidays notions (cf. 2.2 above), we could perhaps say that
language users are socialized into their use of language (which in this case
mostly means their mother tongue).

65

ERVIN-TRIPP(1973) suggests two types of such rules, i.e. alternation

rules and co-occurrence rules.
Alternation rules are said to represent the socio-linguistic equivalent of
the paradigmatic axis of linguistics and their role is to control the choice
of linguistic elements from the total repertoire which is at language users
disposal. In addressing, for example, the alternation rules are represented by
the choice out of such items as
sir
Professor
Tom
my dear
which are said to form the address system of the language, and the choice of
which is socially determined, thus representing sociolinguistic variables.
Co-occurrence rules, in contrast, are syntagmatic in nature, since they
activate the horizontal axis of sequential relationships in such a way that
the choice of address, e.g. Phyllis, implies later uses not only of the same
term but also of possible lexical replacements of the type my girl or good
girl you chaser, colloquial expressions, less careful pronunciation, etc. On
the other hand, the choice of Professor, for example, implies later uses of
whimperatives (also referred to as dressed imperatives, i.e. orders modified
into softened requests, as in Would you tell me the difference?), choices of
standard grammatical structures as well as lexical items, careful pronunciation,
etc. From this point of view, personal address is a systematic, variable, and
social phenomenon, and these features of it make it a sociolinguistic variable
of fundamental importance (PHILIPS & HUSPEK, 1985:94). The echo of
Hallidays conception (cf. here in 2.1) is quite apparent here.
2.2.5 Forms of Address and Configurations
2.2.5.1 Forms
Generally speaking, we can say that the forms of addressing function
parallel to the pronominal system and the pronouns of power and solidarity.
While in BROWN & GILMAN (1960,1977) attention was paid to
pronouns only, in BROWN & LEVINSON (1987), forms of addressing are
subcategorised into bound forms (pronouns) and free forms (titles, names,
terms of endearment, certain kinship terms, etc). Both the categories, treated
as linguistic realisations of intimate vs. non-intimate stuff, depend on

66

underlying configurations of social distance and dominance. The following

survey will illustrate their approach:
Tab. 1 Forms of address
Bound
Free
Non-intimate/ Intimate
Those forms (bound or free), that are considered as non-intimate, are
loooked upon as polite; politeness thus being the means by which the
socio-cultural constrains in interpersonal interaction can be signalled. As
WATTS (op. cit. p. 3, see also 2.2.3), however, pointed out, there are a
number of problems with this assumption, which restricts both the validity
and applicability of Brown and Levinsons conception. Unfortunately,
the static matrix of free and bound forms does not say much about the
quantitative parameters, such as the ratio of their occurrence in various types
of communication or the possible dynamism of changes during the process of
communication. We will return to it in the discussion of our data.
2.2.5.2 Configurations
Since various configurations of the devices for addressing (including
honorifics) will be the subject of our discussion in the following sections,
there seems to be a need for a working definition of the very concept of
honorifics.
In BROWN & LEVINSON (1978:281) honorifics are defined as direct
grammatical encodings of relative social status between participants or
between participants and persons or things referred to in the communicative
event.
Within the honorific system, three categories are distinguished by the
same authors, i.e.
(1) addressee honorifics (AH)
(2) referent honorifics (RH), and
(3) bystander honorifics (BH) (or audience honorifics in LEVINSON,
1983).

67

LEVINSON (op. cit. p. 91) adds one more category of honorifics which
he calls absolute socially deictic information (pointing to the relationship
between the speaker and the setting). For the vagueness of its specification,
the category will be just taken into consideration here as a category close in
function to ERVIN-TRIPPs co-occurrence rules discussed in 2.2.1.
Addressee honorifics (AH) are said to convey respect to the addressee
by the choice of specific linguistic forms, without directly referring to the
addressee. In some AH cultures (Japanese) it is, for example, possible to say
a sentence like It is cold. and by the choice of lexical items convey deference
or just the opposite to the addressee. (For details see COULMAS 1981:18.)
This distinction concerns also e.g. the referent-related differentiation
of predicates (op. cit. p.:19, ranging from neutral via exalting to a humble
meaning, as in
iku irassharu mairu go
Referent honorifics convey respect to things or persons actually referred
to. LEVINSON (1983:90) says that the familiar T/V (singular/plural to a
single addressee) distinction is a referent honorific system.
Bystander honorifics include those cases in which a different vocabulary
is used in the presence of certain relatives. Examples are said to be found in
Australian Aboriginal Communities: there is a special avoidance speech
style called mother-in-law language, which is employed by everybody
when the presence of certain relatives requires special verbal and non-verbal
behaviour (DIXON, 1980). This, according to SIFIANOU (1992:57) could
be roughly equated to avoiding certain expressions and/or switching to
more formal language in the presence of certain people in some European
cultures.
While a very elaborate system of honorifics is said to exist in Japanese,
European languages seem to possess a restricted system, in which, e.g. in
referent honorifics (RH) the pronoun alternatives are restricted to the 2nd
person reference, i.e. to the addressee, cf. the folowing illustrative survey,
which is a modification of SIFIANOU (1992:58):

68

Fig. 2 Illustrative survey of pronominal honorifics

Latin tu / vos (TV), ie. either T-exchange or V-exchange
French tu / vous
German Du / Sie
Greek esi / esis (formality politeness)
Czech ty / vy
English thou / ye (nomin.)
(historically) thee / you (accus.) => generalised into you
As mentioned before, V-forms are linked with differences between actants
(participants), though in synthetic languages, like Czech, the pronoun itself
is not necessarily stated, because of the rich inflectional system of the verb,
which allows to indicate person as well as number, thus rendering personal
pronouns redundant (to a certain extent).
Note. In Czech community, due to the previous political establishment, people
developed a kind of an aversion towards the socially-imposed authoritative
T-exchanges typical of the party members but also given by party representatives
to the rest of the population to create the air of social equality. As a result,
T-exchanges need not always be interpreted as signs of solidarity and
familiarity, especially when referring to those times. (In Brown and Levinsons
terminology, we might speak of socially imposed by-stander (de)honorifics
rather than honorifics to describe the climate of those days.)

BELL (1976:95) focussed on the paradigmatic axis of the address system

in English emphasizing the fact that the loss of the thou-you contrast in
modern English (except for ritualized speech acts, such as prayers) results
in a less obvious set of choices, in which you is no longer a marker of status.
The alternatives thus appear to be First Name (FN), Surname (S), Title (T) as
well as avoidance of a term () resulting in No Name (NN).
Though BELL (op. cit. p. 95) admits that some combinations are
extremely rare, e.g. the reciprocal use of TFN (Title + First Name), as in
Good morning Mr. John Good morning Mr. Henry, others are said to be
clear markers of specific social relationship. Thus Good morning, Smith
Good morning, Brown is said to have very strong indication of maleness
as a characteristic of the speakers rather than femaleness.
There is one more possibility mentioned in WARDHAUGH (1986, 1992:
265) but absent in BELL, i.e. addressing by a nickname, to which we can add

69

the possibility mentioned by BROWN & FORD (1961), i.e. the configuration
of multiple naming.
In the following dyads, twenty-eight combinations each marked with a
+ seem to be available:
Tab. 2 English Address in Dyads
A addresses
B using
B addresses
A using

FN

FNS

TFN

TS

FN

FNS

TFN

TS

[BELL, 1976:95]
Note 1. As Ervin-Tripp (1969) has pointed out, there are differences even in the
way particular social groups in the US use forms of address (cf. her example with
the speakers in the West Coast academic community, who use the title Doctor +
LN, while T only (i.e. Doctor) is used by lower-status occupational group. If this
is the case, then we can probably speak of a marker of both social and regional
difference.
Note 2. Wolfson and Manes (1978) report that maam as the form of address in
the South of the US is often used as a substitute for I beg your pardon? when
asking (a woman) to repeat what she has said, or to explain something. Moreover,
Yes, maam is said by the same authors to be often used instead of Youre
welcome as a response to Thank you..
Note 3. There are various elaborate patterns of addressing with strict rules of
how to address superiors ( a situation typical e.g. of military usage). SPOLSKY
(1998:20) reports that in the US Marine Corps, senior officers were addressed in
the third person (cf. his example Would the General like me to bring him a cup of
coffee? ) , and other officers received sir from their inferiors. In battle conditions,

70

however, officers were often addressed by nicknames (e.g. Skipper for Company
commanders and Gunny for sergeant-majors).

Such findings, because of their less transparent and rather restricted

nature, might seem peripheral compared to central problems of addressing,
but the subtleties encoded in them can have far reaching consequences e.g.
for translating.
2.2.5.3 Greetings and Addresses
While the use of terms of address represents a second area studied
within the ethnography of communication (cf. SPOLSKY, 1998:2), the most
common kinds of politeness formulas are involved with greetings. Greetings
(ranging in English from an informal Hi through a neutral Good morning
to a gradually disappearing (particularly with the young generation) formal
How do you do?) are said to be the basic oil of social relations (SPOLSKY,
1998:20).
No wonder then that in everyday encounters, addresses so often co-occur
with greetings, either to reinforce the semantics of solidarity/distance, or to
signal a shift on the scale of social deixis from solidarity to distance or vice
versa. In both these roles they can be taken as supporters of an activation
of a syntagmatic axis of co-occurrence rules operating in the language
manifestation of politeness (see also our pre-warming remark closing section
2.2.1).
The typical corpus-bound procedure (cf. Sample One below), in which
greetings participated in a language manifestation of the shift from solidarity
to distance, is apparent from the following schema, in which the semantics
of solidarity initiated by the Moderator was not totally rejected by the
Caller (which would violate the Politeness Principle of Agreement with the
interlocutor), but a partial move towards distance is mediated by means of a
choice of a neutral greeting ( i.e. Hello is reciprocated by good morning.)
to which the Moderator usually reacts by a two-step procedure:
(1) by accepting the move from solidarity (the non-reciprocal good morning
in the hello>good morning exchange is politely (in order to avoid a
FTA) remediated into the reciprocal sequence good morning > good
morning);

71

(2) by explicitly signalling distance (sir) to avoid a FTA (if the Caller opts for
the semantics of distance rather than solidarity).
So the prototypical sequence illustrating the situation described above is
the following:
Moderator: Hello, Richard. [solidarity]
Caller:
Good morning, Irv. [neutral + solidarity]
Moderator: Good morning, sir. [neutral + distance].
In Case Study (see 2.2.6.2) this finding will be taken into consideration
in tracing the language devices participating in the dynamic activation of
a syntagmatic axis of co-occurrence rules and at the same time as an
argument for approaching the politeness of addressing in a complex interplay
with other lingual and non-lingual factors. As apparent from the example
above, one can be polite in the choice of address but impolite in the lack
of awareness to other configurations of lingual and non-lingual devices in
which and through which the linguistic politeness is shaped into its final
communicative effect.
Thus, addresses, together with greetings, being the initial parts of initial
turns, function as important interpretative cues for other process to take
effect.
2.2.5.4 Seeking Co-operation: Vocatives
Vocatives, understood as a linguistic category by which speakers designate
their addressees (cf. DAVIES, 1994:79) are well established even in those
languages where (similarly to English) there is no identifiable case marking.
Since their linguistic status as well as communicative functions have been
listed and discussed in many reference grammar books, we will restrict our
discussion to the socio-linguistic aspects of vocatives and their contribution
to the manifestation of politeness, i.e. the focus is on how speakers by using
vocatives identify themselves to the others to preserve their face but at the
same time avoid face threatening acts (FTA) in relation to their addressees.
As DICKEY (1997), however, pointed out, a distinction has to be made
in addressing between referential meanings and address meanings. The
author illustrates the difference by arguing that Madam in its referential
meaning can be used to designate a brothel-keeper, while it is polite in its
address meaning (op. cit.: 256). Though the formulation of his argument
about politeness is rather vague (i.e. in both the situations the speaker can be

72

polite), the impact of his illustrative example upon the perception of the two
different functions is apparent (i.e. a person can be referred to as Mrs. Brown
but addressed as Joan).
Thus each person can receive in fact a range of addresses according to
the speakers intention and one address can have different social implications
when used by locutors of different social status and in different linguistic
functions (address as a reference, address as an appeal). The meanings of
words used in addressing, however, are primarily social rather than lexical.
More choices are likely to exist in those situations in which the participants
are equals or intimates and in a wide range of cultures spouses and lovers are
very creative in such communicative situations, inventing exclusive names
or nicknames for each other.
Having tried to finalise this section during the Valentine season, I tried to
analyse a sample of valentine messages that appeared on the Internet on the
very day, thinking of the possibility to treat them as prototypical cases of an
emotional signature embedded into the vocative by the sender (e.g. Cherry, you
are my everything, Guiness Bottle. or Spanner, Ill love you forever, yours Nuts.)
Moreover, the signature of the sender, as encoded in the vocatives, together with
the name of the sender in the end of the message, create a solidarity frame based
very often on teasing, exaggerating, etc. In this respect, valentines could probably
be used as an example of how the senders socially identify the addressees as well
as themselves in a less predictable way.

R. SCHULZE (1987:3031) in his analysis of impromptu speech paid

attention to forms which act to reduce the social distance between speaker
and hearer, e.g. intimate address forms, such as luv in Help me, luv. Even
the tacit knowledge of the processes of translating will tell us that the Czech
version Pomoz mi, lsko would be far from being a functional equivalent
of the English wording.
Note. In Czech, as an inflectional language, vocative is signalled by a special case
form. An intentional violation of the rule is felt as either pejorative or signalling
an authoritative distance (as e.g. in the army). Therefore, it is prototypically used
as a characterising feature of such communicative situations in which blind but
strong authority seems to dominate the communicative scene, as in the following
utterance said by an army officer to a soldier
Havelka, nesnate se mi namluvit
[nom. instead of voc. Havelko], dont try to tell me

73

Before analysing the data and the dynamism of negotiation encoded in

the forms of address, a short interlude will be introduced to foreground the
above mentioned dynamism by the comparison with a more descriptive and
in this respect even more static approach to addressing imposed on the
interlocutors by the Victorian society.
Addressing in retrospect An Interlude
A brief comparison of present-day usage with the Victorian etiquette
discloses an apparent shift from prescriptivism (concerning not only the
choice of lexical items to be used in addressing but also the rejection of
those that should not be used in order to avoid vulgarity or any violation of
the etiquette. In this respect, the configurations of items prescribed by the
etiquette, functioned as linguistic class indicators. Language in Victorian
society seems to have functioned as a subtle but principal and pragmatic way
of defining ones position or having it defined by others. In an anonymously
published book by a Member of the Aristocracy, entitled Society Small Talk
or What to Say and When to Say it (1879, London), there is an invaluable
chapter on Vulgarismus in Speech, in which a hot question of the time is
being solved, i.e. when to use the words man, woman, gentleman and lady.
The next explanation is cited from Phillipps (1984:8)
In common paralance, a man is always a man to a man and never a
gentleman; to a woman he is occasionally a man and occasionally a
gentleman; but a man would far oftener term a woman a woman than
he would term her a lady. When a man makes use of an adjective in
speaking of a lady, he almost invariably calls her a woman.
When both sexes are to be considered together, Society Small Talks
recommended not men and women, which is very advanced, nor
ladies and gentlemen which is all but vulgar, but a compromise:
ladies and men.
Ladies, when speaking to each other, were recommended to employ the
term woman in preference to that of a lady (e.g. What sort of a woman is
she?)
There was a fear (as Phillipps, op. cit. p.9 reports) that the appelations
lady and gentleman had become too common.

74

 The following humorous example from the Punch volume (1954:39),

cited from Phillipps (1984:11) enables us to deduce what was in the air in
those days:
Railway Guard to Third Class: Wheres the man that has been smoking?
He had better not let me catch him. Ill soon put his pipe out.
Railway Guard to Second Class: Now, gens, smoking isnt allowed its a
fine of forty shillings.
Railway Guard to First Class: If you please, gentlemen, smoking is against
the rules. I must require you to put your cigars out.
In Little Dorrit (II, Chapter 5), Mrs General gives a nice pragmatic
argument in favour of Papa (or Mama) used in the upper class
families and aspiring members of the middle class
Papa is a preferable mode of address, observed Mrs. General.
Father is rather vulgar, my dear. The word Papa, besides, gives a
pretty form to the lips.
This is just a mosaic of details introduced to depict the atmosphere of the
time, in which, however, if you wanted to shine in society as the title of a
manual published in 1860 in Glasgow (cf. How to Shine in Society) promised
you to learn, it was also absolutely necessary to quote at least ten lines from
Tennysons last poem.
2.2.6 Data
In studying language manifestations of the semantics of power and
solidarity, as reflected in the forms of addresses, one is faced with the
dilemma, i.e. whether to treat the forms as results (i.e. as static entities) and
end up with a relatively stable list of possible configurations typical of a given
language (similar to BELLs Dyads) or approach them dynamically, i.e. as
processes-and-results. The aim of the following corpus-based analysis is
not to reject the static approach but rather to support the need of a dynamic
alternative to complete the picture.
For such an alternative a corpus of a spontaneous spoken communication
seems to be a necessary pre-requisite.

75

2.2.6.1 Characterising the Data

When collecting the data, I was looking for a type of spoken
communication in which people are somehow forced to address each
other in order to be polite and not loose their face, and, moreover, for a
communication, in which they have to be context-sensitive in the choice of
the form of addressing. Both these conditions seemed to have been met in the
Corpus I found in an unpublished disertation of M. Ferenk (1998) and I am
very grateful to the author for his kind permission to use his data. The author
used his corpus for different purposes, i.e. to study selected pragmatic, sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic aspects of the dialogue and polylogue in radio
phone-in talk shows but the transcripts of his data offer a rich source for the
parameters I wanted to trace.
Irv Homer Talk Show is a live American phone-in talk show, mostly
dyadic, with Irv Homer as a moderator - and callers. Sometimes occasional
studio-guests are invited to participate in the discussion on issue-oriented
topics of general interest.
The show is broadcast throughout the Middle-Atlantic region from
Monday to Friday (for time details and wave parameters see Ferenk, 1998:
49). The extracted samples of phone-in calls are from the years 1995,1996
and 1997 and represent a part of a two-hour programme of Irv Homer talkshow. The phone-in conversation proper is preceded by Homers expository
talk with the caller, so that the identification of the caller is known before the
phone-in proper. Homers communicative strategies are caller-friendly, his
language is clear, yet full of metaphors and clichs or slang. His most typical
catchphase being it boggles the mind. The nicknames he has been given
reflect his controversial personality (Evil Irv, loveable monster, Mayor of the
Air, Mr. Philadelphia Radio, etc.). I apologise for an easy access to such a rich
source of information but I could not have found a more relevant one. This
corpus will be referred to as Sample One.
Advantages of Sample One
(1) The Corpus enables us to trace the complex interplay of solidarity
semantics and the residuals of power semantics. The solidarity semantics
here is supported not so much by the frequency of contact but rather due
to the creation of likemindedness which is supposed to be the core
of the solidarity semantics. The residuals of power semantics can be
traced in the strategy of the moderator Irv Homer to initiate the reciprocal

76

T-exchanges, since he, being responsible for the talk show, seems to have
a better power-based claim to say T without reciprocation.
(2) The Corpus also allows us to trace the dynamism of power and solidarity
semantics resulting in context-sensitive variables. Thus, when for
example the initial suggestion of solidarity does not come as graceful, the
syntagmatic chain of co-occurrence rules of address is broken and different
chain is followed, which in the end, due to a creation of likemindedness
between the moderator and the caller, may end up in solidarity semantics
again. The switches are supported by language devices, which in this case
can be interpreted as context-sensitive variables of politeness.
(3) The content of the phone-in talk shows allows us to trace the correlation
between dominance and distance (BROWN & LEVINSON, 1987:4547),
i.e. between intimate stuff and non-intimate stuff strategies and their
language manifestations. It is usually the moderator who uses empathy
towards the caller to minimise the dominance and social distance (cf.
the high frequency of occurrence of supportive vocatives in many of the
calls).
(4) Last but not least, the Corpus allows one to trace the proportion between
bound forms and free forms of addresses.
In the Case study section of this chapter, an attempt will be made to
benefit from all the above mentioned advantages.
Sample Two
The second main source of information comes from an Internet document
on the impeachment hearings in connection with Clinton-Lewinsky
case. It contains transcripts published by Federal News Service, Friday,
December 11, 1998 under the title Dec.11: Debate and Vote on Article I
(Washingtonpost.com Special Report: Clinton Accused).
In contrast to Sample One, this document represents a formal procedure
with relatively fixed and socialised rules of behaviour, with only some space
left for spontaneous language manifestations. Even the forms of address are
ritualised rather than spontaneous or creative. The analysis is expected to
reflect the semantics of power, dominance and distance rather than solidarity
based on like-mindedness. The corpus is expected to support WATTS (1989)
standpoint that addressing can be an act of politic verbal behaviour rather
than politeness proper.

77

Sample Three
For comparison of Czech and English strategies used in addressing, or
rather for tracing the adequacy of the transmission of culture-bound language
manifestations from source to target language, a sample of a literary or
rather dramatic discourse has been analysed and compared with the Czech
translation. The sample referred to as Sample Three, is an analysis of Edward
Albees play Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf , which is looked upon as a
transmission of real world into a projected world, and which draws on given,
existing resources of language, action, gestures, etc. but exploits them
for the purposes of dramatic skills. Albees play is not an overtly cohesive
cause-affect design, it is rather a rhetorical design, manipulating audience
involvement but also being sensitive to the audience which has an impact on
the ways of presentation (explicitness, expressiveness, etc.). The comparison
of English and Czech language manifestations of addressing strategies
is hoped to bring interesting insights into cross-cultural similarities and
differences (in both qualitative and quantitative parameters).
2.2.6.2 Case Study
To support our theorising by authentic language data and to illustrate
the procedures that have lead to the findings, selected samples will now be
treated in detail, supported by tables surveying the findings. Also the problem
of quantification will be touched upon and illustrated.
2.2.6.2.1 Sample One
Basic matrix of information about the type of corpus and its size:
Number of shows: 4, number of calls 39
Distribution of calls per show:
Show I (10 calls) the length ranging from 1.14 to 4.03
Show II (4 calls)
Show III (12 calls)
Show IV (13 calls)
Since most of the calls represent manifestations of solidarity semantics,
the variation within this field will be discussed first.

78

As a prototypical sample, CALL 1 from SHOW I will be analysed in

detail. This sample will be referred to as I-1 (i.e. Show I, call 1). Similar
procedure will be applied in reference to other samples.
Example 1
I-1
Focus:solidarity semantics activation of both paradigmatic and
syntagmatic axes
CALL 1 Time 2:08
M = moderator
C = caller, Phyllis, female
The transcript runs as follows
1M

2C
3M
4C
5M
6C
7M
8C
9M
10 C
11
10a
12
10b C
13 M
14 C
15 M
14a C

(moderator) great? Im sitting here in air conditioned studio? do

commercials?.h talk to nice people? its a hell of a way to make a
living..h why dont you audition..h.to e:h Phyllis. Phyllis.you were
auditioning?
yes.
good girl.
I have auditioned already.
good girl.
not my first call?
all right.
second call.+-.hh
+ welcome.
e:h Irv? dont try to chase me. Im a double law breaker.not+-only do
I?drive
M +-a
C between sixty and sixty five in the morning.+-I also dont have a
little number on
M +-oh
the back of my licence plate. how do you like that.its to have it stolen.
three times,.hh you dont get my fourth one. the fourth one is in the car
+-with me thats not the purpose of my call. |
+-((laughter)) you law breaker+- you
+- of my calls is,.h I drive.hh on US one to seventy six west+-to
+-e
King? of Prussia every? morning I am rolling.hh at six oclock in
the morning. I am on the road..hh and if I? didnt maintain the speed

79

16 M
17 C
18 M
19 C
20 M
21 C
22 M
23 M

24 C
25 M
26 C
27 M
28 C
29 M
30 C
31 M
32 C
33 M

between sixty and sixty five,.hh I would get rear ended? side swiped?
And everything else? Im the slowest car on the road that hour?
thats not the point. the point is Phyllis.
I told you Im a law breaker.
right. But I bet you the people that are passing you, all believe? in
law?and order.
ab-solutely as I do.
bet you
I also believe in self-preservation and I would get killed.
I bet
and I bet you they trumpet.h they trumpet the cause of conservatism.
h and they believe in law and order .h and they want more prisons
built. H and they want them welfare mothers in jail .h and yet they are
doing? more? than fifty?-five? miles? an hour.
+well? I drive a little car. and I panic at the thought of one of this great
big vans.h coming at seventy-five .h coming into me.
what would happen, - if
if I slowed down?
no. what would happen do you think if the police insisted. .h tomorrow
morning when you go on the turnpike or wherever you drive? that
you will do no more than fifty-five miles per hour.
Id be very happy. +I would be happy.
thanks for calling.
ok,
you law breaker you
((laugh))
take care.

Legend
The solidarity frame in this sample seems to have been established
during the first 10 exchanges: first initiated by the moderator M, who, being
responsible for the programme, had the advantage of dominance (see the
term absolute socially deictic information used by Levinson and introduced
here in 2.2.5.2, i.e pointing to the relationship between the speaker and the
setting), cf. FN (first name) address Phyllis used as an initiator in (1M), then
accepted by the caller C rather implicitly but in a supportive way (i.e. there
was no sign on the side of the caller to reject the solidarity offered) and,
finally, explicitly reciprocated in (10C) (e:h Irv). The call is at the same
time an example of (a) how alternation rules, activating the paradigmatic axis

80

(cf. here in 2.2.4) can operate throughout the whole sequence of exchanges,
and (b) how the alternation rules are supported by co-occurrence rules to
amplify solidarity semantics. The collaboration of the two kinds of rules
can be illustrated by the following chain, used by the M(oderator), in which
co-occurrence rule manifestations are in italics. The numbers, following the
items, anaphorically refer to the numbered exchanges in Example I1 (i.e.
C10 stands for the tenth exchange of the caller, etc.).
The Moderators chain of reference to the Caller (+ co-occurrence-rule
support)
Phyllis (1) good girl (3) good girl (5) all right (7) welcome
(9) oh (12) you law breaker you (13) ( preceded by a supportive
laughter) Phyllis (16) I bet you (20) - I bet (20) I bet you (23) you
law breaker you (31) (and after a supportive laughter a friendly
closing) take care.
The Callers chain is the following:
e:h Irv? (accepted solidarity) in 10 C, amplified by dont try to
chase me (which diminishes the distance), and by Im a double law
braker (self face threatening act (FTA)), reinforced in 17 C I told
you Im a law breaker. Once the pattern of social deixis has been
built, the C focusses on the content of the message, the dialogue is very
co-operative, so there is no need for the moderator to use supportive
vocatives, etc. In the closing section, Cs ok (30 C) and her laugh
(32 C) as a non-verbal support, might illustrate a typical combination
of lingual and non-lingual means participating in the manifestation of
the semantics of solidarity in social deixis.
Within the paradigmatic axis of solidarity reference to C, we can see a
dynamic shift from FN (Phyllis) in 1M (which is a typical strategy of the
moderator in most of the analysed calls; the exception being example 5) via
the evaluative good girl (3M), reinforced by the repetition in 5M to the
emotional (teasing), but at the same time context-sensitive you law breaker
you (M13)+ supportive laugh. The repetition of you in the sequence may
give the impression of closeness and likemindedness, amplified by a nonlinguistic support (laughter) accepted by C. The switch from you law breaker
you to Phyllis (M16) can be interpreted as a variation within the established
pattern of alternation rules (explained in 2.2.4) used to avoid the stereotypical
introduction of the same form of address in the successive exchanges.
The following survey might be more explicit.
81

Fig. 3 Paradigmatic axis of alternation rules in I-1

(Moderators strategy)
Phyllis
good girl
CALLER
good girl
you law breaker you
Phyllis
you law breaker you
(The arrow indicates the way conversation proceeds.)
To conclude the analysis of example I1, we have to admit that more
delicate results would have been obtained if suprasegmental features could
have been taken into consideration. In spite of the shortcomings we hope
to have demonstrated the dynamism of the on-line process of negotiating
the forms of address, as well as the complex interplay of alternation and
co-occurrence rules.
We also hope that tracing the dynamic oscillation within the pattern of
likemindedness agreed on by the interlocutors is of no less interest. The
smooth run of communication in I1 will probably be more foregrounded
by the comparison of sample I1 with the following example II2, in which
the solidarity offered by M, and not reciprocated by C in an explicit way,
results in a shift to the semantics of distance. In order to demonstrate how
the initial clash in the asymmetrical choice of forms of address can end up as
symmetrical T-exchange, we will now pay attention to example 2.
Example 2
II-2
Focus: greeting+address sequences remedial strategies
Caller: Richard, male
The skeleton of exchanges
1M
2C
3M
6M
8M
15 M

82

hello Richard
good afternoon, Mr. Homer
good afternoon, sir
+now my problem is this, Richard.
you just you just you
take care my friend.

Legend
This call is a good example of a face-saving strategy, as applied by
the Moderator, and at the same time, a good example of politeness used as a
diplomatic tool by the M to avoid a face threatening act (FTA) in relation to
the C. The initial offer of a T-exchange (1M hello Richard), while partially
accepted as in the following example 4 (cf. good afternoon, Irv) is explicitly
rejected here, as apparent from a suggestion of a distance in 2C, i.e. a neutral
greeting followed by TLN form of address (good afternoon Mr. Homer)
to which M immediately reacts by a V-exchange in 3M (good afternoon
sir.) The number of exchanges is relatively small (15 altogether), but Cs
responses and reactions are rather long. He is critical and evidently upset,
explaining the problem with the North American Free Trade Agreement
and this is the moment in which the moderator changes the strategy of
distance into the strategy of solidarity based on like-mindedness, and uses
a supportive vocative in 6 M (now my problem is this, Richard), seeking, as
it were, for co-operation. Thus FN Richard occurs on the scene again, and
unlike in other closing sections of the calls based on referential distance, in
which sir is a typical closing reference, here, rather unpredictably, we are
faced with take care my friend, for which an explanation might be in the
reinforcement of the atmosphere of like-mindedness (which again might be
taken as a prototypical strategy applied by the M in the majority of the calls in
Sample One reminding one of Leechs Politeness Principle and his maxim
of Agreement).
As for the greeting + address sequences (cf. also the section 2.2.5.3),
SACKS (1974:257) mentions that in telephone calls hello is the appropriate
utterance of the first speaker (i.e. before the recognition of who is speaking),
then hi is a common response once solidarity has been established. The same
author (op. cit. p. 257) also mentions the fixed order of greetings and greeting
substitutes (e.g. How are you?): greetings precede greeting substitutes (i.e.
Hello, how are you but not *How are you, hello.).

83

Example 3
I2
Caller: Emma, female
Focus: inclusive we as a remedial strategy
Following is a skeleton of the exchanges focussed on
1 M hello Emma?
2 C good afternoon ( NN (no-name) strategy of addressing used)
3 M how are you (NN reciprocated to signal accepted distance)
6c
(laughter) I am a libertarian like you do; hh like you are (cf. the
like-mindedness)
9a M because you and I have sex in the automobile
11 C (laugh)
12 C (laughter)
9c M does that make sense Emma
16a M dont you agree?
18 C I absolutely agree.
21 C sure
23 M you feel better (generic you)
29 M God bless them my audience they dont know what we are talking
about.
30 C (laughter)
31 M Emma thank you for calling. theyve no idea what we are talking
about
Legend
Call I2 is illustrative of the semantics of solidarity offered by M, not
reciprocated by C but modified in the final section due to the air of likemindedness into inclusive we unifying the Moderator and the Caller and
contributing to the shift from distance to solidarity (31 M).
The next example from Sample One also supports our preference for
tracing the forms of addresses as an on-line process of negotiation. Similarly
to Ex 2 above, call III3 is partly asymmetrical in the T/V exchanges, but the
reasons, unlike in example 2, are less predictable.

84

Example 4
III-3
Focus: content-dependent distance ( deference)
Caller: Peter, male
The skeleton of exchanges:
1 M hallo Peter
2 C Irv

5 C I served in Vietnam
6 M yes sir
8 M you were supposed to die Peter
9 C Irv

14 M sir
Legend
The call can demonstrate, how the content of the message can markedly
influence the form of the address. As apparent from the skeleton, the initial
exchanges are symmetrical up to the moment, when the key message, i.e.
I served in Vietnam is introduced on the scene. After this statement, M
switches to V-exchange (6 M) sir and it is difficult to say whether the
prevailing reason is to express sympathy or deference, but most probably a
mixture of both. In 8M, however, it is apparently sympathy that causes the
change in Ms strategy, cf. the switch to FN Peter. When the topic is over, an
unexpected switch to V-exchange (sir in 14M) for which there is not a single
explanation, closes the call. One of the possible explanations might be that
the feeling of deference prevailed, another suggestion might be that there is
no air of like-mindedness between them but rather a context-bound tension.
The C is not addressed in the closing part of the call, the M just thanks for
calling, to which there is no reaction by the caller at all.
Example 5
I10
Caller: Frank, male from Trenton
Focus: supportive vocatives, No-name strategy to avoid clash in reciprocity
The skeleton of exchanges is the following:
1 M hello Frank
2 C . hh ( )good afternoon Irv
3 M good afternoon sir.

85


5 M yes, sir.

19 M .hh are you basically a shy person Frank?

23 M and there are thousands of you like Frank
27b M (I do wish) you well Frank?
30 C thank you
31 M thank you sir.
Legend
The initial exchanges remind us of example 2, in which the choice of
a greeting can modify the semantics of solidarity: cf. 1M hello Frank,
only partially reciprocated in 2Cs reaction good afternoon, Irv, in which the
greeting indicates a relative distance. The distance is accepted by M in (3M)
and there is a switch in his response to total distance, i.e. good afternoon, sir,
reinforced in (5)M yes, sir. Having found out during the following series of
exchanges, that the C is rather shy, the M changes the strategy of social deixis
and opts for supportive solidarity (19)M are you basically a shy person,
Frank? The same supportive vocative is in (23)M and (27b)M. When there is
no need for supporting the C any more, there is again a switch to distance in
the closing section of the call, cf. 31 M thank you sir (by which the M reacts
to the Cs strategy of not addressing the moderator at all (No-Name strategy)
with the exception of 2C, i.e. during the initial greeting ritual.
The last example from the series used to illustrate Sample One is
interesting by the unpredictable initiative taken by the caller in suggesting
T-exchanges, to which the M first reacts by No-name strategy of addressing
and later uses a variety of common nouns together with the generic you
(i.e. a variety within the paradigmatic axis of alternation rules). And it is only
the closing section of the call in which M switches to a T-exchange (16M
thanks for calling Frank). The following is the skeleton of example 6.

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Example 6
I9
Caller: Frank, male
Focus: Caller as initiator of solidarity, free and bound forms of address,
No-Name (NN) strategy
The skeleton of exchanges
1M
2C
3M
4C
5M
6C
7M

12a C
14 M

welcome? to the Irv Homer show.

Irv. I just want to say first time caller,
welcome.
long time listener. I love your show.
thank you man.
love your show.
thank you friend.

then you figure you spent fifty to a hundred dollars on a date

if you ever watch.hh you know if you pay a woman fifty
dollars and you dont have time for wining God bless you. what
the big deal.
16 M well? they make a big deal?.hh abd e:h we have kids? walking the
streets? who are prostitutes? thanks for calling Frank we
appreciate that.
Following is a schema of Ms reference to C.
Fig. 4
MODERATOR s
reference to C

(NN)
(NN)
man
(NN)
friend
you (generic)
you (specific)
Frank

Legend
This is one of the rare calls, in which, after the No-Name (NN) strategy
of addressing by the M, the initiative of solidarity offered is taken by the C

87

(2C Irv), to which the M again reacts by the NN strategy ( i.e. not confirming
the solidarity offered). In this asymmetrical relationship, the C takes the
initiative again and applies the Approbation Maxim (the Flattery Maxim)
of maximizing praise of other (Leech, 1983:138) in 4C and 6C (love your
show), together with the entailed praise encoded in 4C (long time listener),
i.e. one has to have a good reason for being a long time listener. The maxim
is reciprocated by Ms expression of thanks followed by a switch from
NN to man, changed after the evaluative reinforcement in 6C (love your
show) into friend. and because the topic is the prostitution thing and
there is no climate of like-mindedness between the C and M, the moderator
uses neither supportive vocatives no other forms of addressing the C (with
the exception of the closing section, in which the FN-strategy might be
interpreted as an application of Sympathy Maxim (minimize antipathy
between self and other).
This call can also illustrate the application of both free and bound forms
in the paradigmatic axis of alternation rules, though, a distinction should be
made between you-generic (12aC, 14C) and you-specific, as well as
between you as a part of a discourse marker (14M you know) or a part of a
set phrase (14M God bless you).
Interesting in this call is also the indirect strategy by which the M
expresses his opinions by means of the generic we. It is, however, difficult,
and rather speculative, to reach a one-sided decision as to which maxim
was prioritized by the moderator: was it the Sympathy Maxim (minimize
antipathy between self and other) or rather a Tact Maxim (minimize cost
to other) or both. Thus, example 6 can also serve as an illustration of the
difficulties one is faced with when trying to apply the maxims outside the
prefabricated examples by which they are usually demonstrated in theoretical
studies.
Concerning politeness, there is an evident shift in the strategies of the
Moderator to cope with the situation in a polite way, using indirect strategies
of No-Name to signal distance, generic (and in this respect moderatorinclusive) we, to avoid direct TFAs (face threatening acts).
Problems with quantification
The next example should demonstrate how a mere quantification of the
occurrences of particular forms of address might lead to simplified if not
misleading results. Projected into politeness, the quantity of the forms of
address per call, does not necessarily contribute to a higher manifestation of

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politeness. In Example 7, the moderator, in a rather impolite way tries to take

the floor, interrupts the C, overlaps with the Cs exchanges and uses chains of
repeated words either to introduce the hot topic of having a mistress on
the scene, or trying to take a turn.
The statistics, when deprived of the context as well as the information
about the distribution of the forms within the call, might lead to a misleading
conclusion that there is a high frequency of occurrence of supportive
vocatives reinforcing the solidarity semantics, etc.
The following skeleton of exchanges might illustrate the problem one is
faced with.
Example 7
IV2
Caller: John, male, from Wilmington
Focus: quantification of the data
The skeleton of exchanges:
1 M .h to eh John in Wilmington good morning John welcome to the Irv
Homer show
2 C eh good morning. Irv
3 M [well ha ha John John John John John have you ever had a mistress?

7 M Jo are you saying

10 C now let me say [that just one more point Irv and then you can talk.
okay?
[no no no no no no John John John John Im not gonna argue
11 M who has revealed to you. John?

27 M I understand John. Thank you for calling.

In other calls, the reasons for the increased occurrence of forms of
addressing were caused e.g. by false starts (cf. II2, in which M repeats the
bound form of address (you) four times in succession, i.e. 8M you just you
just you in the opening statement.hh you spelled that out) or overlapping
in turn-taking, so that the M had to repeat the name again, as in II3 in the
sequence 2C hhh hi Irv.[hh.first time caller?
3M
[hi Joe?
4M
welcome Joe

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In one example, the M is checking the right pronunciation of the name,

thus repeating it in two versions (1M Helena or Helena) to end up with
Helen.
What seems to be liable to relevant quantification, however, is the
proportion between symmetrical and asymmetrical manifestations of the
semantics of power and solidarity (sensitive to the strategies applied in initial,
medial and closing sections of the calls), as well as the proportion between
static and dynamic strategies used in the activation of both the co-occurrence
and alternation rules.
These parameters will be taken into consideration in the following surveys.
First, Call l will be analyzed in detail to show the validity of the parameters
traced, followed by some more problematic cases with less predictable
strategies of social deixis applied, and a survey of results achieved when all
the calls in Show I have been taken into consideration.
Survey of types and quantification Show I
Tab. 3 CALL 1, No of turns per call: 33; time: 2:08
Relationship
between M&C

M to C

Form of address
C to M

Ratio free forms: bound

M to C
C to M
Ff Bf Cf
Ff Bf Cf
Ff + Bf

Initial Ms = Cs

FN, FN, CNe, CNe

FN

1 -

Medial Ms = Cs

(BF+CNe+BF), FN

Final Ms = Cs

(BF+CNe+BF)

1 -

Total

The ratio Ff : Bf = 8:4

The ratio of addressing M:C = 7:1

M = Moderator, s = solidarity semantics, C = Caller, Ff = free form, Bf = bound form,

Cf = configurations of free and bound forms, FN = first name, CN = common name,
e = evaluative

90

Legend
The survey gives evidence of the dominant role of the M in establishing
and maintaining solidarity semantics (cf. 4 forms of address used in the initial
phase of exchanges, supported by 2 addresses in the medial phase and one in
the closing section). Once recognizing that the solidarity semantics has been
accepted by the C, the M also supports the climate of like-mindedness by
extra-lingual devices (supportive laughter, which is reciprocated by the C)
as well as linguistic supporters ( the use of discourse markers (oh in 12M),
back-channel echoes (- e in15M), empathy (bet you(20M), I bet you (22M),
I bet you (23M)).
The C accepts solidarity in the initial phase, manifests the acceptance by
FN strategy of addressing the M and since there is no need to change the
strategy of established solidarity, the C focuses on the topic and there is no
other attempt at addressing the M, only supportive laughter to reinforce the
like-mindedness, or the discourse marker ok in 30C). The choice of forms of
address also shows the activation of the paradigmatic axis of social deixis
on the side of the M: he is creative in using free forms represented by FN,
CN, endearment + CN, combination of bound forms sandwiching the CN
(you law breaker you). As apparent from the survey, there is no occurrence
in Call 1 of a bound form used in isolation for addressing the partner. Those
bound forms that were used in isolation, were used in their referential but not
appelative functions.
The conclusions about the proportion between free forms and bound
forms are rather problematic: as for the forms, it is true that the ratio
between free and bound forms is 8:4, i.e. 67%:33% but one has to take into
consideration the fact that the bound forms occurred only in combination
with the free forms. Even so, the dominant choice of free forms supports
the theoretical findings about free-form-strategy being more polite and
if creatively applied, as in our sample, free forms can contribute to a smooth
run of conversation thus diminishing the FTAs (face threatening acts) in
being less intimite.
A little bit more complicated situation in the negotiation of the balance
in solidarity/distance semantics is apparent from the following Call 10, for
which a more delicate subcategorisation within the survey had to be used to
map the situation.

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Tab. 4 CALL 10, No of turns: 31, time: 3:25

Relationship
between M&C

Initial
(1) Ms = Cs/d
(2) Md > Cn
Medial
Ms > Cn
Final
(1) Ms > Cn
(2) Md >Cn

Form of address
M to C

C to M

Gr+FN
Gr+T, T

Grn+FN
NN

FN,
NN

NN

FN
T

Ratio free forms: bound

M to C
C to M
Ff Bf Cf
Ff Bf Cf

1
2

1
-

NN
NN

1
1

Total

The ratio Ff : Bf = 8:0

The ratio of addressing M:C = 7:1

M = Moderator, s = solidarity semantics, d = distance semantics, n = neutral, C =

Caller, Ff = free form, Bf = bound form, Cf = configurations of free and bound forms,
FN = first name, CN = common name, NN = no name.

Legend
Call 10 can serve as a prototypical example of the dynamism in the
distribution of the semantics of solidarity and distance, sensitive to context
bound exchanges (see Example 5).
The solidarity semantics offered by the M seems to have been only
partially accepted by the C (cf. the initial exchanges hello Frank good
afternoon, Irv), which is an impulse for the M to switch to distance (good
afternoon, sir). Due to the hot topic on ones own experience with the
prostitutes, and apparent shyness of the C, the M switches in the medial phase
of the call to solidarity semantics again as apparent from the change sir >
Frank (supportive vocative) + a repetition of FN strategy. The air of likemindedness has been established and continues towards the closing section,
in which, rather unexpectedly, there is a switch to distance on the part of the
M (thank you, sir), probably to pay back for the Cs strategy of NN used
throughout the medial and closing sections. From the macro-structure of the
exchanges, the switch to distance in the closing section is quite understandable
the supportive strategy used to minimize Cs shyness is over and the
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relative distance signalled by the C in the initial section is recollected by the

M: it is he who takes the initiative now to let the C know.
Tab. 5 CALL 9, No of turns: 16, time: 1:30
Relationship
between M&C

Form of address
M to C
C to M

Ratio free forms: bound

M to C
C to M
Ff Bf Cf
Ff Bf Cf

Initial Md < Cs

Gr+NN, CN

Medial Ms = Csn

CNe,
NN

Final
(1) Msn = Csn
(2) Md > Csn

FN
NN

NN
NN

1
-

Total

FN

The ratio Ff : Bf = 4:0

The ratio of addressing M:C = 3:1

Legend
This is the only call in Show I, in which the initiative in offering
solidarity is taken by the C (2C Irv), to which the M reacts by NN-strategy
(3M welcome ), thus creating an air of distance. C is supportive in saying
pleasant things about the Show as well as about the M (4C long time listener.
I love your show). Ms reaction remains still rather distant (5M thank you
man). It is only after the reinforcement of the appraisal (6C love your show)
that the M changes his strategy in 7M (thank you friend). This all happens
during the initial phase of the call. Then comes the main body of the
exchanges about the views on prostitution. There is no air of like-mindedness
between C and M, the M, in order to keep the communication on ( and be
polite in this respect) uses a limited number of back-channel devices (9M
yes, 11M no, 13M mhm, 14M hh well?, 16Mwell?). The use of we in
16M (we appreciate that) is far from being supportive, it is used rather as a
camouflage; (cf. politeness manifested through indirectness here) the we
appriciate that does not necessarily mean that the M does appreciate that, but
is less face-threatening.

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Similar approach has been applied in treating all the Calls in Show I and
the findings are recoverable from the following Table.
Tab. 6 Survey of solidarity/distance semantics in Show I (Calls 110)
Relationship between
M&C

CALLS
6 7 8

4 5

Ms = Cs
Md > Cs
Ms < Cd
Md = Cd

+
-

+
-

+
-

+
-

+
-

+
-

+
-

Medial Ms = Cs
Md > Cs
Ms < Cd
Md = Cd

+
-

+
-

+
-

+
-

+
-

Final

+
-

+
-

+
-

+
-

+
-

Initial

Ms = Cs
Md > Cs
Ms < Cd
Md = Cd

Static/dynamic
S
D

S S

D S D

10

+
-

+
-

+ (1)
+ (2)
-

+
-

+
-

+
-

+ (2)
+ (1)
-

+
-

+
-

+ (1)
+ (2)
-

+
-

S S

D D

Legend
The statistical finding that 5 out of 10 calls were rather stereotypical in
keeping to the identical pattern of social deixis is rather surprising at first
sight, namely if we take into consideration what we know about the dynamism
of social deixis. A deeper insight into the static manifestations of addressing,
however, reveals that in 3 calls out of 5, the solidarity semantics pattern,
negotiated in the initial phase of the calls is very stable throughout all the
exchanges within the call, thus creating happy situation of communication.
Moreover, the static pattern in Call 7 is due to the fact that this call is in fact
a continuation of Call 5, which is dynamic.
In the dynamic manifestations (referred to in the Table as D), there is
nearly always a phase, in which one of the participants aims at solidarity

94

(the exception being the medial and final phase of Call 3). Thus we will
probably not be far from the theoretical findings by the ethnographers of
communication, when concluding that there is a strong tendency in the
phone-in-calls, as a special kind of ear-to-ear rather than face-to-face
interaction, to negotiate the semantics of solidarity as soon as possible and
create the air of like-mindedness. On the other hand, whenever the context
bound interaction reaches a phase in which there is a potential danger of a
FTA (face threatening act), the politeness finds its manifestation in a sensitive
switch on the imaginary scale from solidarity to distance (or vice versa).
The projection of Sample One into Brown & Levinsons strategies
By way of application, the analysed samples were projected into the
politeness-strategy schema proposed by BROWN & LEVINSON (1978,
1990) with the following results achieved (the underlined choices represent
our path of the strategies prioritised in our corpus-based samples of addressing;
the commentaries in brackets reflect our corpus-limited findings).
Fig. 5 Possible strategies for doing FTAs
1. without the redressive action, baldly (rare)
on record
Do the FTA

2. positive politeness
with redressive action

4. off record (macro-pragmatics)

5. Dont do the TFA

3. negative politeness
[After Brown & Levinson 1990:69]

As apparent from the schema, though there is said to be a strong tendency

in English to apply negative politeness strategies, the proportion between the
positive and negative strageties was almost equal. The conclusion is based
on the survey of manifestations of both positive and negative politeness
strategies as introduced by Brown and Levinson (op. cit.: 68ff.).

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The strategies in Sample One included

Positive politeness manifestations

Negative politeness manifestations

notice, attend to C

intensify interest in C

use in-group identity markers

seek agreement

joke

give reasons

assume or assert reciprocity

give gifts to C (goods, e.g. I like that gay;
sympathy, understanding, co-operation)

be direct/conventionally indirect
hedge, question
give deference
apologize
minimize the size of imposition on C
go on-record

As for the off-record strategy, apparent from the macro-view of

the whole series of calls, the moderator gets the credit of being tactful,
diminishing the irony, caring for the callers, and gets the credit for being
co-operative.
For the purposes of second language acquisition, teaching practice and
translating, more relevant, however, seems to be a very simple finding, i.e.
that all the three rules of politeness (later renamed as rules of rapport) by
LAKOFF (1979), i.e. 1. Dont impose. 2. Give options. and 3. Be friendly.
have been applied in the calls (i.e. have been projected into the addressing
strategies and manifested by the language devices used (in configuration with
extra-lingual means of communication).
Concluding remarks to Sample One
All the calls in Sample One were approached in a similar way, and the
overall impression deduced from the analysis is definitely not that of a static
matrix of prescribed configurations but rather a scale of context-bound and
context sensitive varieties in forms of address ranging from establishing
the social status during the first two exchanges, as in III1 (Good morning,
Kevin. Good morning, Irv.) with no further address used in the rest of the call,
up to complicated switches from asymmetrical (T/V) to symmetrical (T/T)
exchanges or vice versa.
From the linguistic point of view, interesting are those cases, in which the
shift in the form of address is caused by explicit linguistic devices, such as the
formal language used in III6 by the C, to which M reacts by a switch from
FN to T only (e.g. hello Jerry hello.yes Irv. But after 4 C I had a pleasure
of speaking with your about a year or two ago, M reacts by Yes, sir. The
96

feeling of having been on the same boat in political opinions, however,

results in Ms T-exchange again (cf. Jerry in 11a M).
With the experience from analysing the corpus-based examples we would
like to formulate some tentative generalisations (limited in their validity by
the size of the corpus as well as its type).
1. The Corpus gives support to a need to approach forms of addresses
as context-sensitive variables. BELLs dyad may be a good guide
but definitely not a safe guide in studying the oscillation between the
semantics of power (or its residuals) and the semantics of solidarity.
2. The prevailing free forms in our samples support BROWN &
LEVINSONs (1978) hypothesis about the correlation between free
forms and linguistic politeness such that: free forms, particularly those
referred to as to as non-intimate forms, are said to be linked with
linguistic politeness more than the bound forms. Our corpus, however,
supports only the first part of the hypothesis, i.e. that free forms of address
tend to be perceived as more polite than the bound forms.
3. On the other hand, the correlation suggested by B & L between free
forms and non-intimate relationship (i.e. that within the free forms it is
particularly non-intimate forms that are linked with linguistic politeness)
has not been found relevant for such a generalisation: it seems to be the
case that non-intimate forms can be more polite when the semantics of
distance is supposed to be manifested but not in case of the semantics of
solidarity, as can be demonstrated by e.g. supportive vocatives, which in
our corpus were systematically signalled by FN (First Name) free forms
of address and their primary role was to signal intimate rather than nonintimate stuff.
4. Sample One is also illustrative of Verschuerens (1999:91) finding that
there is no principled limit to the range of social factors that linguistic
choices are interadaptable with. (Our conclusions about politeness in
addressing are also complicated by the fact that social settings impose
many types of principles and rules on the ways in which certain linguistic
acts can be performed or on the choice i.e. who has the right to perform
them.)
Thus the ultimate goal of the analysis in Sample One was to increase
our awareness of non-native speakers to the interplay of the semantics of
power and solidarity as reflected in language and through language, as one
of the possible contribution to a complex interplay of devices participating
in the language manifestation of politeness. In this respect, Sample One

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represents the core of my analysis within this chapter, to which the following
two samples are rather supportive, and in a sense peripheral.
2.2.6.2.2 Sample Two
The corpus referred to here as Sample Two and representing the full
version of the investigation during the Clinton-Lewinskys case, is an
example of setting-, institution-, and community-specific communicative
norms that have to be observed and in which the form of an address
contributes to a ritualised language use (i.e. speech exchanges organised
in ways ordained by convention). We can also characterize the sample as
a set of institutionalised speech events, which require fixed phrasing, and
very often the choice of language other than the one in current use. In this
respect, following WATTS (1989) suggestion, we should not think so much
of politeness proper but rather of a politic verbal behaviour (with some
traces of a creative manifestation of linguistic etiquette). Our expectations
are that the form of address, seen from the macro-context of the whole text
sample, will be rather stereotypical in terms of alternation rules activating
the paradigmatic axis (cf. the language manifestation of the rituals with some
space left for variation, e.g. the stereotype of an indirect 3rd person address
based on the recurrent pattern the gentleman from X, as in the gentleman
from Michigan, the gentleman from Georgia, etc.) while less predictable,
and consequently more interesting from the point of view of politeness
strategies, will be the activation of the syntagmatic axis of co-occurrence
rules, i.e. the way in which the form of address is contextualised to reflect
and echo a special communicative macro-event. In the next section
attention will be paid to both paradigmatic and syntagmatic axes to verify our
hypothesising and check the validity of our presuppositions.
The Macro
The impeachment hearings and the debate, as mentioned before,
represents a ritualised discourse, in which the social distance between the
Chairman and the Members is taken for granted, and as such reflected in
the ritualised language used. So, the polarity is between the Chairman and
the Members. When tracing the strategies in addressing, we can see the
following variations.

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a) Members addressing the Chairman

(the presupposed strategy is that of distance and deference, reflecting
the dominance of the semantics of power; cf. again Levinsons (1983) term
absolute socially deictic information referred to here before.
The following strategies were applied:
the Chairman is nearly always addressed (i.e. the zero form of address is
rare but does occur in the corpus).
He is basically addressed for two reasons: (1) address as a reference and
(2) address as an appeal (i.e. when the Members wanted to take the floor).
The second function, as can be presupposed from the macro-context of a
hot discussion over a hot topic prevailed.
The two different functions of addressing the Chairman are also supported
by the distribution of addresses per turns ( though more evident support
would be achieved by taking into consideration suprasegmental features,
e.g. a separate tone unit, a tone unit division, etc. cf. QUIRK et al. 1985:
938). Aware of the shortcomings of the written version of the corpus, I
will formulate the findings with this reservation in mind.
1. address in initial position used as an appeal, i.e. an attention getting
device: request for taking the floor (the unifying pattern being Title +
Title, followed by the question mark to signal a request proper, i.e. Mr
Chairman?). In a more explicit and at the same time more polite request,
the address was followed by the request + a polite formula asking for
a permission to require something, as in Mr. Chairman, did you get a
response from Mr. Starr, could I require? (1)
2. medial position the expression of deference, politeness (typical when
a Member was announced to take the floor and thanked the Chairman
for being recognised as such, e.g. Thanks, Mr Chairman, Thank you, Mr
Chairman; sporadic was a zero address preceded by the expression of
thanks for having been allowed to take the floor, i.e. Thank you. ). In
ironic exchanges, which were not infrequent, the insertion of the address
seems to be the price paid to the politic verbal behaviour rather than
politeness proper, as in
Rep. Hyde: Let Mr. Schumer finish. I have a feeling hes nearing the end.
(Laughter).
Rep. Schumer: Your feeling, in this case, Mr. Chairman, is correct and
justified. (14)

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3. final position address as reference, the expression of deference,

politeness, as in
Rep. Scott: Okay. Ill yield back, Mr. Chairman. (35)
4. initial + final the combination of 1 and 3.
Rep. Schumer: Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word, Mr.
Chairman.
(21)
5. multiple address in a single turn a combination of reference and appeal,
as in
Rep. Jackson Lee: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman,
we have all had an opportunity to hear this morning from passionate
Americans who have disagreed. In so doing, Mr. Chairman, we have
confirmed what this nation stands for. It is a democracy. It does abide
by the rule of law. It is a constitutional government. (2)
The communicative situations in which two identical forms of address
are used in two successive utterances can be prototypically characterized
as a sequence of address as reference + address as appeal. The first is
anaphorically linked with the previous speech act (of thanks), while the
second cataphorically refers to the following speech event of taking the
floor.
6. Zero address
Rep. Hyde: Mr. Chalot.
Rep. Chalot: Thank you. You know, the argument is being made by
some of the folks (62)
And since the pattern with you know following the zero is repeated
in the zero manifestations of addressing, we could assume that the
discourse marker You know is a partial compensation for the absence
of addressing and in its consequences a language manifestation of
politeness.
7. Interrupted addressing
Rep. Nadler: Mr. could I make a unanimous consent request,
Mr. Chairman?
Only sporadically, the Chairman was referred to by sir, as in p.13: Rep.
Sensenbrunner: May I reclaim my time to give you some of the specifics,
sir?

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The boring, yet communicatively functional stereotype of addressing the

Chairman is only sporadically compensated for by the variety of forms the
Chairman uses when addressing the Members.
These will be in the focus of my attention in the following section.
b) Chairman addressing the Members
From the point of view of solidarity semantics distance, authority and
the consequent irony in the absence of like-mindedness seems to prevail in
Chairmans strategies of both addressing the Members and referring to them.
Justice, however, is to say that the role of the Chairman is far from being
easy, since the Members compete in taking the floor, interrupt the speakers
by jumping into each others turns with seemingly polite requests for taking
the floor (cf. Would the gentleman yield?), but the very fact that they interrupt
the speaker who was recognised for taking the floor for five minutes, makes
the Chairman use offensive strategies, imposed authority, irony, and very
often sarcasm (supported by a metalanguage communication inserted into
the transcript, e.g. (Laughter), (Chuckles), (Sounds gavel) etc. There are two
basic strategies applied in addressing the Members:
(1) direct address (rare, and usually in combination with the indirect form
preceding the direct one, which can be presupposed from what is generally
known about the role of indirectness in the manifestation of politeness).
For an example see Pattern Eight (p. 102).
(2) indirect address (prevailing)
The prototypical scenario of initial exchanges is the following (Rep. Hyde
= The Chairman).
REP. ROBERT SCOTT (D-VA): Mr. Chairman? (a request to take the
floor)
REP. HYDE:
The Gentleman from Virginia. (the request has been
accepted, the speaker has been identified and yet the
indirectness continues)
REP. SCOTT: Move to strike the last work.
REP. HYDE:
The Gentleman is recognized for five minutes.
REP. SCOTT: Mr. Chairman (address) did you get a response
Thus the most frequent pattern (referred to here as Pattern One) by which
Members are addressed or referred to is the following

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Pattern One

T + Lo (title + location) as in
The gentleman from Michigan
The gentlelady from

with less predictable alternations (Patterns Two Eight):

Pattern Two

T + Lo + TLN
The gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Barr.

Pattern Three

CN + Lo (common name + location)

My colleague from Massachusetts
(solidarity semantics, not reciprocated because of the
superiority of the Chairman, as apparent from the
colleagues reaction I thank the gentleman).

Pattern Four

TLN + L
Mr. Barr from Georgia

Pattern Five

TLN + T+ Location
(en extended version of pattern four)
Mr. Coble, the gentleman from North Carolina

Pattern Six

TLN
Ms. Lofgren? (Mr. Canady. Mr. Meeham).

Pattern Seven

T only
The gentleman/the gentlewoman/the gentlelady

Pattern Eight

E + CN (Endearment ) (ironic), as in
Rep. Hyde: Yeah. If my good friend would listen to
when we talk over here If you will listen If you will
listen carefully, you will get your answer. (31)

The types, as introduced in the survey, follow the hierarchy based on

the frequency of occurrence of a given structure in the corpus. In the last
pattern, however, the communicative situation is different. The speakers are
contextually identified as definite (cf. also the definite article preceding the
address) and the T-only is used due to language economy. That is to say that
the speaker in Pattern Eight must have been recognized for taking the floor in
previous communicative exchanges.
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c) Members between/among themselves

The most frequent accompanying feature of their communication is
irony, and the most frequent communicative strategy that of saving ones
own face and threatening the face of the other if the other does not show
like-mindedness (which, as mentioned in the section on the semantics of
solidarity, is a pre-condition for solidarity semantics). The distance is again
supported by indirect 3rd person reference (cf. examples 12 below).
To illustrate the atmosphere, lets trace the following linguistic support to
the above mentioned strategy:
Ex. 1
p. 9: If the gentleman wishes to muzzle me, thats fine. I think I deserve to
be heard
The corpus is also rich in language manifestation of politeness used as
a camouflage for FTAs, as in the following example 2.
Ex. 2
p. 41: Rep. Schumer: Would the gentleman yield? (a ritualised form of
asking for a permission to interrupt the speaker recognized to take the floor,
to which there was no reaction from the speaker, yet Rep. Schumer continued
as if the speech act of permission had been performed): And I thank the
gentleman for his courtesy in yielding.
A prototypical feature of impolite behaviour is a continuous cross-talk
(a violation of turn-taking principles and constant overlapping of turns)
disturbing the happy situation of communication, which is a pre-condition
of language manifestation of politeness.
Supportive Case Study to Sample Two
Another ritualised text studied to trace the rather static matrix of social
deixis, as encoded in addressing, and as supported by archaic language
formulae, was the Order of Proceedings at Congregation for higher and
honorary degrees as valid for the University of Durham. In the standardized
ritual,

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Registrar addresses Vice Chancellor

Vice Chancellor > Dean
The Public Orator > Vice Chancellor
Mr Chancellor is referred to as
A female Chancellor is referred to as

as

Mr. Vice Chancellor

Mr. Dean
Mr. Vice Chancellor
Sir
Madam Chancellor.

More interesting for non-native speakers, however, is the apparent

simplification of the formulaic language used to support the syntagmatic axis
of co-occurrence rules and an apparent move from distance to solidarity.
Before early 1990s, the description of the ritual together with the initial
formula was the following
Procession enters and all remain standing whildst the Vice-Chancellor says:
This Congregation is holden for the purpose of conferring degrees.
From early 1990s onwards, the wording is the following
This Congregation assembled for the conferring of degrees.
2.2.6.2.3 Sample Three
The third sample, as briefly characterised before, is based on the
comparison of Edward Albees play Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf? with
its translation into Czech by Luba and Rudolf Pellars (see References). The
sample represents dramatic dialogue as discourse (in Hermans 1995 sense
of the word), in which dramatic personae are represented not only by name
or type, but very often by role they represent (such as Honey/Drahunka in
our corpus), which reminds one of the meaning of person as mask in Latin.
In this play, the force of conversational resources was used as dramatic skills
thus convincing the reader/audience that dramatic discourse and conversation
share areas of commonality, though in literary discourse, speech exchanges
of everyday contexts are used (or exploited, as in our sample) to construct
a fabricated speech in plays, tailored as it were to the needs of the fictional
world.
Aware of the shortcomings of the analysis of a written sample of a
dramatic discourse (i.e. a sample deprived of other instrumentalities,
such as oral activities, like cries, calls, screams; the variation of pitch,
rhythm, intonation, etc., which can endow the text with social, aesthetic or
attitudianal colouring, cf. ELAM 1984:46; LYONS 1977:63), we would
like to focus on the context-bound usage of forms of addressing in Albees
original and translated versions of the play and trace their contribution to

104

social deixis and the scale of politeness (perceived from the point of view
of the marco-structure of the play as a configuration of various means
participating in the language projection of politeness phenomena). Also of
interest will be to trace the activation of both paradigmatic and syntagmatic
axes of social deixis as represented by the interplay of addresses with other
context-bound supporters. Our partial aim is to demonstrate how the form
of address is very often expressive of the role and belongs to it.
In Albees view, the problem of modern society is that a great majority
of people would like to live their lives half-dreaming, and the aim of the
playwright is to wake them up. In his play, the stream-of-consciousness way
of communication is not regulated by norms of interaction, conventions,
or politeness (if polite, the characters are only cooly polite in one of
the protagonists words) and the characters feel free to let the stream of
consciousness flow with no social norms of behaviour standing in their light
(the consciousness being lulled as it were by alcohol to forget about empathy,
pretence, face threatening acts, etc.). Rather than a mirror, the play is an
X-ray of the society. The effect of the deixis ad phatasma (HERMAN,
1995:28) is used to locate objects not only to the physical space but in the
mind or imagination of the speaker.
Thus, the dialogic segments, which will be isolated for the purposes of
our analysis, are seen as influenced by the cognitive context constructed by
the total dialogue of the play and what seems to be essential for evaluating
the role of the form and function of addresses in theatrical plays in general, is
the transmission of information based on the intersection of two axes:
(1) character character interaction
(2) stage audience reception
and it is the dramatists skill to manage the two axes adequately (i.e. what can
be redundant to the audience may be crucial to one or the other of dramatic
figures, etc.).
Consequently, the strategies of addressing have to be considered with
both those axes in mind.
Case Study
Before discussing the network of addressing, a note about quantification
seems to be relevant. In Albee, self- and allo-repetitions are the resources
used to contribute to the air of the stream of consciousness: the participants
in the games re-cycle their own or others speeches in the dichotomy of
the roles of hosts-guests, late at night, at a drunken post-party party. From

105

this point of view, quantification of the data seems far from relevant for the
purposes of present analysis. More important is the quality of the information
transmitted through addresses and the Czech translational solutions.
Our approach to translation and translational equivalency is based
on KNITTLOVAs series of studies, and textbooks (see References),
representing a functional and systemic approach to translatology, in which
the process of translating is based on the transfer of both semantic and
pragmatic invariants from source to target language, and in which the
pragmatic aspect reflects sensitiveness of the translator to different extralinguistic situations, different linguistic as well as extra-linguistic experience
of the participants of interaction, different social conventions, non-identical
types of unconventional speech manifestations, style differences, etc. The
problem-solving situations result in information-adding and informationdropping processes, and adequateness (or rather seeming adequateness) is
achieved by a complex and sensitive approach to partial solutions (for details
see KNITTLOV, 1981:5965)
A handful of cross-language remarks might prepare the ground for the
English-Czech data-based comparison to follow.
a) Remarks on cross-language comparison
If language is looked upon as social semiotics in Hallidays (1978) sense
of the word, then we can presuppose the existence of social and culture-bound
differences projected into the compared languages to manifest societal needs
in face-saving strategies. Part of the differences results in the possibilities
open by the language type (i.e. typologically conditioned differences),
others are culture-specific.
As for the language type, the synthetic Czech opens more possibilities
for variation within T- and V-exchanges, thus opening space for a scale of
delicacy due to the existence of different singular and plural verb forms,
which then can be used in combination with FN forms of address.
As a result, addressing a partner in communication by FN (e.g. Pavle)
need not necessarily imply being on first name terms, since there is still an
option in the choice of the verb-form ending, as in
Pavle, mete mi s tm autem pomoct?/ pomete mi s tm autem?
[Paul voc. sg. can you [plural] help me with the car?]

106

which can be taken as an intermediate phase between intimate T-exchanges

and distal V-exchanges, though rather interpreted as a less distal V-exchange,
to give a scale
a) Pavle, me[sg.]
[T-exchange]
b) Pavle, mete[pl.]
[T/V exchange]
c) Pane LN (last name), mete
[V-exchange].
And, interestingly, even a more delicate scale could be obtained, if we
included also the T+ FN sequence, i.e. Pane Pavle, in which, however, the
form of the predicate verb is restricted to plural only, i.e. pomete but not
*pome, as in
Pane Pavle, mete mi s tm autem pomoct?
This type should be located between b) and c), thus representing a V-T-V way
of addressing, carrying a certain degree of intimacy. The variation within
the FN address, i.e. the usage of various deminutives (Pavle > Pavlku,
Pavlku) will be discussed later.
The gradual transition of English from synthetic to analytical language
has markedly influenced the status of the present-day pronoun you, which,
though said to be democratic (and thus operating as a great social equilizer
cf. WIERZBICKA, 1991:48), can, at the same time, be looked upon as a
distance building device (op. cit. p. 47). This schizophrenic role of
you in social deixis decreases its interpretative transparency. In order to
disambiguate the social semantics encoded in particular occurrences of you,
we have to activate the axis of co-occurrence rules and look for contextual
supporters of either distance or solidarity. Without this contextualization,
you keeps everybody at a distance (op. cit. p. 47), which is explained as a
culture-bound need for psychological and physical privacy (i.e. a strategy
of building a protective wall, which is compatible with the overall approach
of the Anglo-Saxon culture towards the preference for a negative politeness
manifestation over the positive one, cf. the discussion in the introductory
chapter.
So, when delimiting the status of you in the system of social deixis, we
would probably not be so far from reality by saying that due to the loss of
solidarity pronoun (thou/thee), the role of you has been re-evaluated into an
indifferent face-saving marker of social deixis, open to context specific
interpretations.
The expressive derivation of personal names in Czech (and many other
Slavic languages), supported by a highly productive morphological system

107

and a variety of word-formative processes and devices, opens space for

variation within the scale of intimacy (cf. Joko, Jonku, Josvku Draho,
Drahunko, Drahuko, Drahulinko) with each of them implying a slightly
different emotional attitude and what WIERZBICKA, 1991:51 calls
emotional mood. By contrast, in English, though diminutives exist, we can
hardly speak about a productive system of diminutive derivation (cf. Charles
Charlie, duck duckling; auntie but not *unclie, horsie but not *goatie,
etc. cf. op. cit. p. 50). Also the frequency of occurrence of diminutives is
more sporadic, often attributed to different cultural tradition and different
hierarchies of such values as intimacy, cordiality and courtesy, but also nonimposition, and non-interference.
The existence of a grammatical concord in Adjective Noun/Noun
Adjective sequences in Czech, opens space for its violation, which, though
restricted in its application to particular classes of Ns (cf. masculine), can be
used in combination with a word-order permutation to endow the utterance
with an emotional colouring, cf.
kluku ln
[boy masc. lazy fem.]
which amplifies, as it were, the attitude semantically encoded in the
adjective (cf. also the positive approach in (ty) kluku zlat). Without the word
order permutation, however, the violation of the concord does not occur, cf.
*ln kluku. With feminine nouns, the violation does not occur , i.e. there are
no sequences Nfem + Adj masc., e.g. *holka zlat (which might be a topic for
feminists to discuss).
As for culture-specific manifestations, the title only-strategy in
Czech, as in dmo, associates deprecatory connotations, as in
Kdo si mysl, e jsi, dmo!
[Who do you think you are, lady!]
The common practice in English Universities for PG students and teachers
to be on first name terms, is rather exceptional in Czech university climate,
where there is a preference for an asymmetrical usage with students
using TLN (Pane profesore) and teachers using mostly FN + plural form
of the verb (i.e. a compromise between T- and V- exchanges).

108

 Endearment forms, typical of English (love, dear) used e.g. in service

encounters, would be very marked in Czech, and in terms of politeness,
would increase the FTA (face threatening act) rather than contribute to a
happy situation of communication.
The disappearance in Czech of 3rd person pl. pronoun as a systemic
device to signal social distance, i.e. Kam jdou [Where are they going?]
in reference to a single addressee, has contributed to the re-evaluation of
the function into a stylistically marked device contributing to humorous
effects or stylistic colouring (cf. in Jewish jokes and anecdotes about the
Jews).
While in English respect titles are usually not preceded by other titles,
i.e *Mr. Professor (the exception being e.g. Mr. Justice, Mr. Chairman, Mr.
Ambassador and in US Mr. President), the sequences are quite common in
Czech, as in Pane profesore. The sequence can even be extended to result in
Title+Title+Last Name (T+T+LN) sequences, as in Pane profesore Browne
*Mr[voc] Professor[voc] Brown [voc], which varies in interpretation
ranging from a selective vocative (in case of more Professors present)
to an emotionally coloured form of address (with context-bound shades
in meaning).For Corpus-based occurrences see Concluding remarks 4/2.
There is, however, an emotionally coloured (humorous/pejorative) variant
of the Czech equivalent, in which the vocative Pane profesore is partially
substituted by a nominative, to result in a mixed vocative-nominative
sequence, e.g. Pane professor (with a possibile lengthened variety , i.e.
profesr).
The above survey of cross-language differences is selective, and its main
goal was to activate mainly those differences that might contribute to a
better understanding of various decision-making processes manifested in the
translation of Albees play.
Though it has been argued many a time (LEVINSON 1978) that terms
of address along with T/V exchanges constitute sociological universals,
the parameters determining particular choices, as well as the inventory, are
culture-bound, reflecting particular societal needs as well as society-bound
linguistic etiquette. What is essential in such comparisons, as with other
manifestations of politeness, is to take into consideration the ways in which
the manifestation of politenesss is perceived and ritualised in the compared
languages. With this in mind, let us look now at the translational solutions in
Albees play.

109

b) Addressing in Sample Three English-Czech interface

Our procedure throughout the whole analysis is from English as a source
text to Czech as a target text.
Host-host network of addressing
(a) Neutral FN terms (Martha > George) used to monitor the mechanism
of turn-taking and/or turn-passing or in sporadic moments likemindedness.
As for their distribution (i.e. whether initial, medial, or final), in Marthas
replicas, the final distribution of neutral forms prevails, as in
, George (7, 9, 23)
, Ji (105, 106, 113) (Numbers = reference to pp.)
or
, George (9)
(= NN strategy) (106)
There is only a sporadic use of medial or initial neutralform of address
in E, (which, however, is not necessarily neutral in Cz, as the following
example might demonstrate)
Oh, George! (12)
Ale Jiku (107)
The more predictable pattern of the initial forms of address in Marha >
George strategies of addressing is that of emotionally colloured addresses as
in
Poor Georgie-Porgie (12)
Chudek Jiek (107) (indirect way of
addressing)
to fit the general pattern of the initial situation/topic bound marked labelling
of the partner to be discussed in the next section.
A tentative conclusion we can reach from this finding is that the neutral
forms of addressing are presupposed to occur in those places of the mechanism
of interaction, where there is a need to support the network of communicative
mechanism of turn-passing. The final-position way of addressings reminds us
of an afterthought, an echo of politeness that from time to time penetrates the
stream of rather rude and rough intimate stuff discussed and amplified by
dirty jokes, etc.

110

George > Martha

Georges strategy compared to that of Martha is more polite in distributing
the neutral forms of addressing in a more-balanced way, with almost equal
occurrences of initial and final forms, cf. initial address-as-an-appeal function
in
Martha (6,8,25, )
Marto (105, 106, 115)
OK., Marta (29)
No dobe, Martiko (117)
and final
, Martha (15,17,19,23)
, Marto (109,110,111,115)
again not always translated in a neutral way into Czech, as in
, Martha (13, 217)
, Martiko (108, 222)
or the example above (OK. Martha No dobe, Martiko). The medialposition addresses are sporadic, as in
Now, listen to me, Martha, you have(208)
A te poslouchej , co ti eknu (218)
b) Non-neutral way of addressing
As mentioned before, the neutral strategy of addressing seems to
be restricted in the play to the minimum, accompanied by a restricted
distribution. The majority of forms is marked in one way of another
(emotionally coloured, ironic, mocking, etc.), with the prevailing negative
evaluation of the partner. Both Martha and George are very creative in
this respect, though partly predictable in their strategies, since many of the
marked labels used are topic/situation bound (e.g. lover/svdnku when sex
is discussed, or phrasemaker-frzisto to refer to the verbosity or a clich used
by the partner). The predictability of some addresses is also increased by the
above mentioned re-cycling process in the stream of consciousness. What,
however, is not predictable, is the switch from context-bound to image-bound
or emotion-bound preferences in approaching the partner. Here both Martha
and George undoubtedly shock the audience by their inventiveness we would
like to illustrate by the following list (which is far from complete).

111

Martha > George

English version

Czech version

a cluck (6)
a simp (14)
SCREW YOU! (19)
PHRASEMAKER (14)
sweetheart (16)
Screw, sweetie (23)
Look, muckmouth (21)
Lover (16)
angel (25)
BULL! (199)
You prick! (59)
You bastard (58)

trumbero! (104)
jelimnek (108) indirect address
Ty p a r ch a n t e j e d e n (111)
F r z i s t o (108)
pusinko (110)
Ale ku, holoubku (114)
ty sprosku (112)
svdnku (109)
andlku (115)
Mezku! (213)
Ty hajzle jeden (135)
ty chlape bdn (134)

During a single exchange, Martha is capable of using unpredictable

configurations of positive and negative evaluative forms, such as
Thats right, baby a swamp! Hey swamp! (50)
Dobe, dobe, broukuTrouchnivino! Trouchnivinko! (130)
which undoubtedly contributes to the increased markedness of the forms of
adress used.
George > Martha
George, as apparent from the following selective survey, does not lack
far behind Marthas inventiveness, though the frequency of occurrence of
addresses in his replicas is lower (corresponding to a smaller number of his
turns in the play):
Hello, honey (15)
uuberuko! (109)
love (18,19,26)
moje milovan (111,111,115)
You pig! (16)
un! (109)
dear (7)
milku (105)
angel (24)
andlku (114)
you satanic bitch (137)
Ty mrcho jedna belsk (179)
Chastity(199)
ty moje Vestlko (213)
, girl, (209)
, dvenko, (218)

112

Host guest exchanges

Martha > Honey
The role of Honey is rather backgrounded in the play and the addressing
strategy used by Martha (as well as other party members) reflects Honeys
social role. When, however, Martha does address Honey, the semantics of her
social deixis is far from solidarity: it is either distance (despect) or power she
encodes into her way of addressing, as in
You old floozie! (73)
ty zo! (143)
More dynamic ( and at the same time more creative in this respect is
George and so are also the translators into Czech).
George > Honey
sexy, Hi, sexy (129)
angel-tits (129)
you simpering bitch (178)
baby (177)
little Miss (178)

uu, zajku (174)

frcinko (175)
vy mrcho jedna uhihan (201)
berunko (200), beruko (201)
holinko (201)

Martha > Nick

Nick seems to attract Martha physically and she is very inventive in
teasing him, giving him sexual hints, using ambiguous language, etc. The
spectrum of forms of address is quite impressive and reflects Marthas mood,
her topic-bound feelings, attitudes, etc. And all this re-cycled (and in this
respect multiplied) - as mentioned before. Marthas approach towards Nick is
that of dominance, as apparent from the following repertory of addresses.
Little boy (163)
Stupid! (188)
Oh, little boy (192)
You poor little bastard (193)
Lunk head (193)
, baby (68)

malink (193)
ty chytrej! (206)
milej zlatej (209)
ty jelimnku ubohej (209)
ty moulo (210)
, brouku (140)

113

George > Nick

George has also a rich repertory of forms of addressing by which to mock,
show irony and situation-bound hints
toots (201)
houseboy (214)
buster (236)
big boy (205)
stud (203)

prcku (214)
ty sluho (214)
ty mane (233)
mldeneku (216)
hebeku (215)

Guest host exchanges

The guests, Nick and Honey, as predicted by their social role of the
guests, are supposed to be in a less dominant role and behave accordingly.
The alcoholic post-party party, during which the hosts are ironic, rude and
impolite to their guests, the strategy of saving ones own face seems to be
more important than the care of FTAs.
Nicks reactions towards Martha are probably the most neutral reactions
in the play, cf.
lady (194, 232)
milostiv (210)
milostiv pan (231)
though the Czech translation counterparts are not so neutral.
Similarly, Honey addresses Martha, i.e. the host, as lady, for which a
more explicit equivalent has been preferred in Czech (which, from the point
of view of our experience with translating from English into Czech, is not
surprising).
Lady, please (232)
Pan Marto, prosm (232)
Concluding remarks
Having in mind that Sample Three represents a creative and stylistically
marked usage of the forms of addressing as a part of the macro strategy
applied throughout the whole play, we would like to formulate the following
tentative conclusions.

114

(1) The comparison has amplified the importance to approach the compared
items not only in the micro-context of their occurrences but also from
the perspective of the macro-context of the play as a whole, since the
immediate solutions might be influenced by the overall macro-processes
and the consequent strategies in the choice of a given translational
counterpart. To illustrate the point, one might be surprised e.g. by the
choice of pane kolego in Czech to compensate for the English Sir, as
in
(a) Nick: Sir? (32)
Jak prosm, pane kolego?(119)
but when tracing Nicks replicas to George, we can see that the translators
were systematic in this shift in solidarity semantics and used the same
form of address even in those situations, in which there was a No-Name
strategy in English, as in
(b) Nick: Im sorry if we (32)
Promite, pane kolego, jestli jsme (119)
(2) This brings us to a more general finding about the Czech equivalents
of the English addresses in the play: there is a consistent shift in social
deixis to more explicit, more emotional and very often also more intimate
expressions. This impression is based on the configuration of addresses +
other supportive devices, as in
(c) Look, lady. (194)
Helete, milostiv (210)
(3) Another more general finding concerns the tendency in Czech to avoid
stereotypical ways of addresses by using a variety of forms by which
to refer to a character. The synthetic Czech, with many inflectional and
derivational possibilities, offers flexible modifications of the base-forms
of the naming units, which is apparent from such comparisons as
(d) baby (177) beruko (200)
berunko (201)
or
(e) little boy (163) malinkej (193)
(192) milej zlatej (209)
cf. also the role of diminutives in the Czech version, as apparent from
the illustrative examples above (e.g. angel andlku, girl dvenko, boy
chlapeku, Jesus Jeku, etc.)

115

Less general was the tendency in the Czech version to change the direct
address into indirect address-as-reference, as in
(f) There you are, my pet (47)
, tady je to moje zlatko (128) instead of the expected
, tady jsi ty moje zlatko.
(4) Besides the above mentioned large number of diminutives, the increased
emotional colouring of the Czech addresses seems to have been mainly
achieved by the following strategies, i.e.
1) by the addition into the form of address of personal pronouns with
the resulting sequences of bound + free forms, as in
Lunk head (193) ty moulo (210)
Stupid! (188) ty chytrej! (206)
(this is not to say that there were no sequences of bound + free forms
in English, as in You satanic bitch (137), but even here, there was an
additional extension in Czech: ty mrcho jedna belsk, 179).
2) by the violation of a grammatical concord in the N + Adj sequences,
as in
You bastard (58) ty chlape bdn
[you sg. + boy voc. male N] + [Adj. female ending].
(See also the remarks on cross-cultural comparison preceding this
section.)
Our final remark concerns differences in the distribution of the forms
of address in the compared texts. Though basically the distribution in the
translation corresponds to the original text, there are unpredictable shifts in
Czech, as in
George: Martha, I gave you the prize years ago (16)
J jsem ti u ped lty piznal primt, Marto (110)
There were many more interesting translational solutions in the text
that should deserve more attention, but since our goal was mainly illustrative,
we will conclude this section by saying that Sample Three might be used to
illustrate anti-polite rather than polite way of addressing, in which Leechs
Principle of Politeness, namely the maxims of tact and generosity, were
overshadowed by a more dominant Principle of irony.

116

2.2.6.3 Conclusion to Samples 13

In spite of some differences between the analysed texts (cf. also the
impact of the difference between a debate and a conversation, as specified
by ORESTRM (1993:267)), the topic variety, and individual speakers
preference it can be said that the proportion between a dynamic,
context-sensitive way of address and the rather static, unified form of
address is approximately 88 % versus 12 %, which supports my hypothesis
that addressing is a manifestation of a dynamic activation of both the
paradigmatic and syntagmatic axes of social deixis, sensitive to the changes
in the configuration of factors of a given communicative situation (including
changes in opinions, the proportion between the semantics of power and
solidarity, degree of empathy explicitly expressed, etc).
This finding seems to have relevant consequences for second language
acquisition as well as educational linguistics and translatology.
The mechanisms of addressing, as HERMAN (1995:164) points out,
can be used to construct a specific architecture of social interaction in text/
discourse.
For cline-sensitive analysts, addressing can be seen as representing
a cline from a title, as a least intimate form to a nick name or a pet name a
cline, which is language specific in typologically conditioned manifestations
of forms, configurations and their semantic load and culture-specific in
communicative values encoded in addressing as a process and addresses as
a result.

117

Chapter Three
POLITENESS IN APOLOGISING
3.0

Introduction

In this chapter, a brief outline of two partly compatible and partly

overlapping approaches to apologies will be outlined, namely the Speech Act
Theory (SAT) and Conversational Analysis Theory (CA) and a synthesis of
both, referred to as Dynamic Speech Act Theory (DSAT).
The comparison of the above mentioned approaches should enable
us to find relevant criteria for a corpus-based analysis of apologies as
communicative strategies, as well as apologies as language manifestations
of the underlying communicative strategies. The corpus, if not specified
otherwise, refers to the London-Lund Corpus (LLC) as represented in its
written version (see References and section 3.3.2).
The structure of this chapter will be slightly different from the treatment
of addresses in Chapter Two, since the very nature of apologies ( i.e. whether
a single speech act or a sequence of speech acts, whether one-dimensional,
speaker-oriented act or two/multi- dimensional act presupposing active
participation of the offended party, etc.) is so widely discussed from
various perspectives that, for the purposes of our partial goal, we cannot but
outline the basic standpoints and discuss their relevance for our preliminary
mapping phase.
The procedure in the application section will run as follows: first
a problem will be addressed, followed by our theory-based and partly
intuition-based hypotheses, then the LLC samples will be analysed, followed
by the discussion of the results and if it happens to be the case our
modest attempts at a modification of the theoretical findings will conclude
the section. Our priorities in the competitive solutions will be in favour of
applicability, which might help in second language acquisition processes of
acquiring politeness competence in the target language (see the concluding
chapter of the thesis).
Before all, however, apologies will be put into a framework of speech act
theory and considered within the dimension of politeness as opened by the
theory.

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3.1

Apologies in Speech Act Theory (SAT) tradition

and development

When thinking of SAT, we have in mind first of all the findings of

AUSTIN (1962) and SEARLE (1975) and the studies by their followers,
traditionally quoted and referred to in any relevant study on SAT. (For details
see Verschueren, Yule, Levinson, etc.)
Both the philosophers, AUSTIN and SEARLE, have touched upon the
question of politeness, considering linguistic communication not just to be a
means of conveying information, but a tool people use to achieve a variety of
goals (cf. Austins 1962 rhetic act, and Searles (1969) propositional act).
Their conception could be summarised as follows: when people use
language, they do things or have others do things for them, i.e. they apologize,
promise, request, thank, etc.
In order to successfully accomplish those activities, politeness is a prerequisite. The things people can do with language have been grouped into
various numbers of categories and subcategories to result either in extensive
lists (Austin, 1965) or reduced regroupings (Searle, op. cit.) together with
the conditions under which a particular speech act is successful. For many
of the speech acts, performative verbs have been listed, which explicitly
signal the intended speech act. Thus, e.g. in Austin (1962:150163), 4th
category of performative verbs, referred to as behabitives, is connected with
congratulating, blessing, challengingbut also apologising.
As for the ways speech acts are employed and interpreted, we cannot
but agree with HALLIDAYs (1978) interpretation of language as social
semiotics (for details see 2.1) and the consequent interpretation of the
intended speech acts as relative to socio-cultural values.
3.1.1 Geis extention of SAT model known as DSAT
(Dynamic Speech Act Theory)
An attempt at a synthesis of the traditional speech act theory (SAT), and
conversational analysis (CA), cf. SCHIFFRIN, TANNEN, has been proposed
by M.L. GEIS (1995).
In his study on Speech acts and conversational interaction: Toward a
theory of conversational competence, Geis introduces a new theory of speech
acts which he names Dynamic Speech Act Theory (DSAT) and whose goal
is the development of a theory of competence that underlies our ability to

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converse with others (xii, 55). Geis presents DSAT as a cognitive approach
to language and social interaction, emphasising participants interactions
and goals. His treatment of utterances thus requires understanding why
the utterance was produced, that is what goal or intended effect(s) of the
speaker was in producing the utterance (op. cit.: 38). The significance of the
successive utterances that comprise a conversation rests on how they alter the
participants belief states (op. cit.: 96).
Note. What seems to link the traditional SAT with Geis DSAT is an intentionalist
view of meaning and action (cf. Searle, 1983). On the other hand, what seems to
make a distinction, is the scope: while the SAT focussed on analysing discrete
sentences, Geis DSAT prefers the concept of interaction structures.

As one of GEIS reviewers (ROTH, 1998), however, pointed out, Geis is

inadequate in using hypothetical examples rather than real language data and
rather sceptical about the role of the sequential organisation of conversation.
As a result, his model, instead of offering the above mentioned synthesis, is
said to subsume selected aspects of CA to speech act theory.
Consequently, for the purposes of our analysis, we will rather follow the
hypothesis advocated by LEECH (1983) about the links between particular
speech acts and types of politeness (i.e. whether positive or negative, in
which the location of apologies is within the domain of negative politeness,
i.e. as an intervention in the course of events) and apply them together with
HALLIDAYs (1978) relevant finding about the links to socio-cultural
values. Our decision is supported by BLACKMOREs (1993) argument that
within a speech act framework
we can only talk of the speech act (or illocutionary force) potential of sentences,
and that the task of a theory of utterance understanding (pragmatics) is to explain
how speakers use contextual information to choose an actual illocutionary force
from the potential illocutionary forces associated with the sentence uttered.
[Blackmore, 1993:1023]

As for the universality of speech acts, it would be premature to treat

them as invariable abstract categories. The first step according to COULMAS
(1981:70) should be to start out with kinds of speech acts as defined in a
given socio-cultural and linguistic system, which is close to the above
mentioned conception of HALLIDAY (1978) but also to the standpoint of
WIERZBICKA (1991).

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3.1.2 Bach and Harnishs approach

More relevant for its applicability, is the proposal by BACH and
HARNISH (1982:41).
Here, speech acts are divided into communicative and conventional ones,
with subcategorisation within each type. The following Fig. 1 might clarify
their approach.
Fig. 1
Communicative

constatives
directives
comissives
acknowledgements

Speech acts
Conventional

effectives
verdictives
[After Bach & Harnish, 1981:41]

When trying to project apologies into Bach & Harnishs classification,

we find out that more speech acts participate in the apologiying act, i.e. in
the overt language manifestation of apology, as can be illustrated by the
following example
Im sorry
constative

for what happened

this will never happen again

comissive

acknowledgement
and this is most probably the reason why the traditional model has been
extended to take not only speech acts but also speech-act-sets into
consideration. The following approach is based on such findings.
3.1.3 Blum-Kulka et al. and their IFID-theory
In recent years, a number of cross-cultural studies in apologies have
thrown light on different realisations of apology as a speech act in different
languages and an increased attention has been paid to the problem of
pragmatic transfer (GARCIA,1989, SUSZCZYNSKA,1992).

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The idea of apology as a speech act has been elaborated by BLUMKULKA, HOUSE and KASPER (1989) to provide a model of apology as
a speech act set. In this model, apology consists of a set of strategies or
formulae, most important of them being the illocutionary force indicating
device (IFID), e.g. I apologize (for), Im sorry that, followed by an
apologetic account, different strategies of expressing responsibility,
offers of repair and a promise of forbearance.
The following figure may illustrate the conception in a more transparent
way.
Fig. 2 The model of apology as a Speech act set
IFID

an apologetic
account

expressing
responsibility

offers of
repair

promise of
forbearance

[After Blum-Kulka et al., 1989]

When exemplified by language data, one of the possible manifestations

can have the following form
Im sorry / Ive broken your vase./ It was my fault/ and I will compensate for
it./ Ill never touch those things here again./ (I)
One of the drawbacks of their otherwise thought-provoking theory seems
to be in the constructed situations, mostly with instances of personally
offensive acts, while socially offensive acts mostly remained untouched
(which does not correspond to real life situations).
Another drawback, also revealed by the corpus-based analysis, is the
regularity of the above mentioned sequences within the speech act set,
which is not supported by natural language corpus (cf. also the findings of
SUSZCZYNSKA,1992). To illustrate the complexity of natural encounters,
we borrow an example from FRASER (1981), which is commented upon
for different reasons but may serve as a good example of what we have in
mind when speaking about complexity and partial unpredictability of the
configurations within the speech act sets (to use BLUM-KULKAs, 1989
terminology).

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The example is in fact a reaction of a mother who is talking to her children

about an impending divorce:
1
2
3
4
Im sorry. / I know how much it hurts you./ I just have to do it / and youve
5
got to try to understand. / Daddy will still be your father./
(Fraser, 1981:266)
If we try to apply the above mentioned Speech-act-set approach to the
example above, we might conclude up by stating that the sequence above can
be analysed in the following way
IFID + event + justification + request for understanding
1
2
3
4
+ a soothing remedy
5
(The underlined parts are not liable to the schema in Fig.2. and as we will see
later, this is also true of many examples excerpted from the London-Lund
Corpus.)
3.2

Apologies in Conversational Analysis (CA) strategic models

To conversational analysts, apologising represents before all sets of

communicative strategies in various configurations, while the status of
the final product, i.e. apologies, varies. GOFFMAN (1971:143) describes
apologies as gestures through which an individual splits himself into
two parts, i.e. the one that is guilty of the offense, and the one that
dissociates itself from the delict. The two parts, however, are not activated
simultaneously but rather successively. The following Fig. might illustrate
Goffmans (1971:109) remedial work.
Fig. 3
IMPOLITE ACT
STATE 1
Speaker offender
Addressee offended
(the vase got broken)

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POLITE REMEDY

>

Oh, Im sorry

>

POLITE STATE
STATE 2
Speaker non-offender
Addressee not offended
Never mind/ Thats all
right

GOFFMAN also emphasised the necessity of requirements that must be

met (including locutors beliefs about somebody who has apologised) cf. for
example O.K. I apologize for being born., which sounds at least ironic (if not
sarcastic).
Note 1. What is called an impolite act in Goffman, is referred to by COULMAS
(1981:75) as object of regret ( i.e. an umbrella term for a variety of apologyprovoking situations, e.g. damage, annoyance, inconvenience, etc.). The variety
of objects of regret results in a variety of strategies used to apologize. These will
be introduced later (cf. 3.2.1.2)
Note 2. COULMAS (1981:75) also pointed out that apologies need not necessarily
be only reactive. In his conception, beside the already mentioned ex post
apologies i.e. the apologies following the event, which represented the majority
of investigated cases), there exist ex ante type of anticipatory apologies prewarming the addressee for the act of apology before the potential act of offence
(cf. his example Excuse me for calling you by name, Mr. Hoover).

As apparent from Fig. 3, there seems to be a chain reaction in causation

here: the offence is a cause for apology (effect), which turns out to be a cause
for the following effect, i.e. the acceptance of apology and change from the
offended state 1 into a more polite state 2., where more polite does not
mean more than polite but rather less impolite.
In this respect, apologies are reactive and more frequently, instead of
being looked upon as gestures, they are approached as strategic devices
whose main function is to balance the decrease of politeness relations
between interlocutors caused by the offender (see sections 3.2.1-3); a
kind of a remedial exchange, a remedial causative act taken by the offender
(exceptionally by somebody else speaking for the offender or compensating
for the offenders failure to do so) to change state 1, which might be called
offensive, into state 2 for which I use working labels acceptable, tolerable,
neutralizing to reflect the fact that there is a scale of final effects (cf. 3.2.1.3),
dependent on various situational and personal factors, such as
(1) the reason for apology: i.e. whether the offender apologizes because s/he
violated social norms or rather because of personal expectations on the
side of the addressee;
(2) the communicative strategy preferred (i.e. whether e.g. to use apology
ex-ante or ex-post, whether to introduce the reason for apology or not,
whether to offer a kind of a compensation for the offense, etc.);

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(3) the choice out of the variety of language devices used to express various
degrees or rather nuances of regret. [After Suszczynska, 1992]
In the next section, selected conceptions will be discussed in detail to
prepare the ground for the criteria applied in the following corpus-based
analysis.
3.2.1 Strategic approach state of the art
There is a consensus among ethnographers of communication (cf.
SUSZCZYNSKA, 1992 for an overview) that apology is implied by the
politeness theory.
Although BROWN & LEVINSON (1987) list apology mainly as a
politeness strategy redressive for the hearer, it is clear that apology is not
only a strategy used to compensate the offended party but a strategy used to
restore the face of the offender, and to adverse the unwanted consequences
of the offensive act.
The first systematic attempts to define a prototypical apology in terms of
felicity conditions, configurations of communicative strategies, and structural
properties, can be traced in the collection of papers entitled Conversational
Routine (COULMAS, 1981), cf. the papers by FRASER, EDMONDSON, and
COULMAS. While Fraser (On apologizing, op. cit.: 259271) focussed
on the beliefs we usually take to be true about someone who has apologized,
and on the variety of strategies available to perform the act of apologizing,
Edmondson (On Saying Youre sorry, op. cit.: 274288) makes a distinction
between communication rules, conversational strategies and social maxims
and exemplifies the differences, thus preparing a ground for apologies seen
as manifestations of illocutionary act endowed with specific illocutionary
values. He also admits partly routinized and partly conventionalized nature
of language devices used to manifest apologies. Coulmass study (Poison
to Your Soul. Thanks and Apologies Contrastively Viewed, op. cit.: 6991) is
an evaluable source of cross-language comparison, and suggestions of how to
approach speech acts in a more integrated way, cf. his comparison of thanks
and appologies having much in common in the phase of responses, eg. Thank
you so much. Thats all right. (thanks) Excuse me please. Thats all right.
(an apology). Emphasis in on the increased sensitiveness to culture-specific
norms of social behaviour as exemplified in his study by the comparison of
Japanese and Western cultures.

126

(The idea of apology as a manifestation of a remedial exchange, however,

is much older as exemplified by GOFFMAN (1971) and surveyed in the
introductory part of this section.)
3.2.1.1 The conception of B. Fraser
B. FRASER (1981:263) gives a list of nine strategies which might be
said to represent a scale from direct to indirect apologies, with illustrative
examples. Since the list seems to be rather heterogeneous in nature and in my
own analysis preference was given to processual rather than communicative
interpretation of the notion of strategy, I would like to introduce his
taxonomy first and offer a modest attempt at a different solution afterwards.
Strategy 1: Announcing that you are appologizing
I (hereby) apologize for
Strategy 2: Stating ones obligation to apologize
I must apologize for
Strategy 3: Offering to apologize
I (hereby) offer my apology for
I would like to offer my apology to you for
Strategy 4: Requesting the hearer accept an apology
Please accept my apology for
Let me apologize for
I would appreciate it if you would accept my apology for
Strategy 5: Expressing regret for the offense
Im (truly/very/so/terribly) sorry for
I (truly/very much/so) regret that I
Strategy 6: Requesting forgiveness for the offense
Please excuse me for
Pardon me for
I beg your pardon for
Forgive me for

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Strategy 7: Acknowledging responsibility for the offending act

That was my fault
Doing that was a dumb thing to do
Strategy 8: Promising forbearance from a similar offending act
I promise you that that will never happen again
Strategy 9: Offering redress
Please let me pay for the damage Ive done
The first four strategies are said to be relatively direct, with the explicit
mention of apology (in the first case even in the performative way, cf.
I hereby apologize for ); the following five strategies are less direct, i.e. the
speaker does not explicitly say that he is apologizing, but uses rather indirect
strategies ( cf. expressing regret, requesting forgiveness, etc.)
Suggestion for modification
Our comment to Frasers conception is the following.
Strangely enough, Fraser does not pay any attention to the fact that the
majority of his strategies (1-3,5,8) are ego-centric (i.e. speaker/offenderoriented, cf. I apologize, I offer my apology), with 4 and 6 being partly
ego-centric and partly hearer-oriented (I would appreciate if you, Please
accept my apology); 7 is referential to the event or object of regret
(That was my fault), while 9 focuses on the repair phase. We would like
to be sensitive to this sub-categorization in our own analysis and look for
a contextual support to find out to what extent our suggestion for a more
general grouping, as indicated above, might be relevant (for the survey see
also 3.2.2).
3.2.1.2 F. Coulmas framework
COULMAS (1981:69-91) treats apologies within the context of a cline
ranging from thanks via apologies to a mere sympathy. The connecting
property is the recognition of responsibility, which in the case of thanks and
apologies is admitted while with sympathy it is not recognized (ie. the object
of regret does not have to be indebting for the speaker and this is the situation
in which apologies gradually merge into the expressions of sympathy).

128

What made COULMAS sensitive to such a framework was probably

his knowledge of the politeness strategies in Japanese, as apparent from
his conclusions of the type Europeans do not normally conceive of thanks
and apologies as related activities. On closer inspection, however, some
typological similarities become apparent. (op. cit.: 70) Most of his study is
devoted to the analysis of shared strategies used for thanks and apologies as
well as language manifestations of both.
Coulmas is of the view that while the contribution of apologies and thanks
in terms of exchange of information is not very important, their importance
lies rather on the interpersonal level of rapport.
In terms of cross-cultural perspective, Coulmas puts emphasis on the
culture-specific nature of thanks and apologies, argueing that every society
seems to have its norms and values with regard to what kinds of deeds and
omissions require apologies and thanks, and how these obligations can be
met verbally (op. cit.: 70). (See also concluding part of 3.1.1.)
As for apologies, Coulmas emphasizes their reactive nature and referential
character manifested in a three-place apology pattern (op. cit.: 75) in such
a way that apologies react to the object of regret, which may be a situationbound variable (e.g. a kind of damage, annoyance or inconvenience, etc.),
either predictable or unpredictable; indebting or not indebting. Due to the
possibilities of subcategorisation and the variety of possible configurations,
we are faced with different kinds of appologies and the consequent language
responses. Following the second component, i.e. an apology, is a responder.
With responders, the hearer has two options: either to recognise the object of
regret and diminish the burden of the speaker, or deny its existence and/or
play it down (op. cit. 77) as apparent from COULMAS examples for this last
time Ill forgive you vs. thats quite all right.
The following figure will illustrate his approach
Fig. 4
object of regret

A three-place apology pattern

apology

(predictable/unpredictable)
(indebting/non-indebting

responder

(object of regret recognized vs. denied)

(For this last time Ill forgive you. vs. Thats
all right.)
(I)

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COULMAS (1981:75) does not insist on the strict application of his threeplace pattern and admits possible permutations. Moreover, what is essential
for my corpus-based analysis, he emphasizes the correlation between the
character of the sequence and the predictability of the intervening event such
that with predictable intervention into the course of events, anticipatory (ex
ante) apologies are preferred thus resulting in sequences
apology
e.g. Sorry

object of regret
Ill be late again

responder
No harm done

(I)

He also admits the possibility of a simultaneous performance of apology

and the object of regret, with no responder to follow, as in i.e.
apology
object of regret
(Sorry for being late.)

responder

(I)

Since the rest of his paper is devoted to the description of the Japanese
scene, I will conclude this section by repeating his characteristics of apologies
and thanks in the context of politeness: both apologies and thanks are said to
be strategic devices whose most important function is to balance politeness
relations between interlocutors (op. cit.: 81).
3.2.1.3 Apology as a continuum
The importance of corpus-based analysis for the study of apology has
been advocated by BEAN and JOHNSTONE (1994).
Their approach is close to the functional approach as advocated by the
Prague school scholars, since it is dynamic and sensitive to continua. Their
model of the speech act of apologizing ranges apologies along a continuum
from the most situational to the most personal ones, as apparent from the
following survey of their conception borrowed from SUSZCYNSKA (1997:
5)

130

Most situational

Most personal

Felicity conditions less perfectly met

Felicity conditions more perfectly met
(act less offensive, regret less genuine, etc.) (act more offensive, regret more genuine,
etc.)
Relatively generic response
to recurrent situation
involving disruption of talk

Relatively particular response

to a new situation
involving personal offense

Intent and effect is to

ensure that talk flows smoothly

Intent and effect is to express regret

Fulfils system requirements

(Goffman), such as preempting the floor
or signalling frame changes

Fulfils ritual requirements

(Goffman) such as allowing selfrespect, autonomy

Unelaborated or attenuated
in form

Relatively elaborated in form; may be

repeated, include explanatory accounts

As BEAN and JOHNSTONE (1994) observe, the situational apologies

tend not to generate verbal uptake, while personal apologies are often
responded verbally and have different interactional effects (e.g. protecting
and/or sustaining interlocutors feelings).
3.2.2 Summing up
Our approach in the application section will be mostly inspired by
COULMAS (1981), FRASER (1981), and the IFID theory of BLUM-KULKA
et al. (1989), with apologies understood as overt language manifestations of
speech-act-sets rather than single speech acts. This approach also enables
us to perceive apologising as a continuum from the most situational to the
most personal manifestations. Inspired by Fraser, though at the same time
modifying his approach (cf. the closing part of 3.2.1.1), we will be sensitive
to the following four parameters associated with Frasers apologising
strategies
Speaker-oriented (Im sorry)
Both speaker- and hearer-oriented (I would appreciate if you would
accept my apology)
Hearer-oriented (Pardon me for/Forgive me for)
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 Event-oriented (That was my fault) and

Repair-oriented (Please let me pay for the damage).
Apologising will be treated here as a causative, i.e. reactive speech act
ranking with other remedial exchanges, with apologies treated as reactions
to events (the term event will be preferred further on to Coulmas object of
regret due to language economy) that may have a negative impact on the
addressee, i.e. events interpreted as interventions into the course of his/her
events or the events shared by him/her. Such an intervention may be factual
or just assumed. The first one calls for justification, the second does not. The
reason for apology is twofold: regret and responsibility. The event can be
either predictable or unpredictable.
With predictable events, the typical sequence in the three-place pattern is
the following:
apology
event
responder
while with the unpredictable events, the event precedes apology and responder.
So the unmarked position for an apology if we follow COULMASs 1981
reasoning is the second position in the three-place apology pattern, i.e.
event
apology
responder
(need not be verbalised)
3.3

Corpus-based data

3.3.1 Expectations
The purpose of this section is twofold:
(1) to address the question of how corpus data can contribute to our
understanding of apologies as parts of remedial exchanges, neatly woven
(to use Hallidays term) into naturally occurring conversation; and
(2) to verify the validity of hypotheses discussed in the theoretical studies
focussing on remedial exchanges in general and apologies in particular
and deduce how liable the respective theoretical findings can be for
practical application.
My working hypothesis is that due to the complex interplay of linguistic
and extra-linguistic factors in real life communication, the process of
apologising is not so straightforward and transparent to be forced into

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a straight jacket of predictable speech-act-set slots. More predictable

according to my expectation will be configurations of language devices used
to manifest particular discrete steps in the act of apologising (here I base my
presupposition on Coulmas (1981) finding about a highly routinized nature
of language devices used for thanks and apologies).
3..2

Characterising the data

The core of the material investigated here is the analysis of apologies

as represented by conversational texts taken from the book version of A
Corpus of English Conversation (J. Svartvik and R. Quirk, 1980) often
referred to as London-Lund Corpus. (LLC). It is an invaluable source of data
and provides insights into
(1) The structure of remedial exchanges in all their phases (i.e. from
elicitation to the uptake of apology).
(2) It enables to study the dynamics of remedial exchanges (including both
explicit and implicit ways of manifesting apology as well as performance
and non-performance of apology).
(3) The contextualized examples enable one to study the aspects of intra- as
well as inter-cultural pragmatics (apology strategies in the English of
natives as opposed to the non-natives, cf. GARCIA, 1989, COULMAS,
1981), the social status of the interlocutors, etc.
(4) The corpus also allows the analyst to verify the validity of parameters
to be used in a more delicate analysis, e.g. to trace the amount of
situational apologies prototypically associated with minor incidents
and personal apologies prototypically following major incidents and
unlike the situational ones, often responded verbally and resulting in
various interactional effects (smoothing rough spots, creating rapport,
and the like).
(5) Last but not least, the corpus confirms the validity of both language
regularity as well as irregularity in manifesting the communicative
strategies associated with apologies.
No exhaustive account can be given here: some sketchy remarks should
illustrate how miscellaneous events can be subsumed under apologies.
For the verification of the relevance of the speech-act-set theory, five
conversational texts have been chosen, recorded in different periods (see
the specification within the particular sample characteristics), with some

133

information about such social factors as age, sex, occupation. Typical of the
texts is their dialogic nature (i.e. spontaneity, simultaneity of speech, false
starts, back-channel reactions, loose co-ordination (cf. URBANOV, 1984:
14), minor sentences, chopped sentences, etc.).
3.3.3 Procedure
First, inspired by the theoretical findings, I formulated questions to be
addressed and parameters to be traced. Their choice has been motivated by
my interest in the validity of those theoretical findings that might be relevant
for the follow-up utilisation of the results in my pedagogical and research
activities and in this respect is far from making use of all the possibilities
offered by the Corpus in this domain.
Some of the questions addressed are procedural, some of them, however,
are more practically oriented. The following 7 points ( or rather investigative
questions) represent the priorities of my focus.
1. What kind of a model to apply?
As mentioned before, Coulmas (1981) thought of a three-place apology
pattern, which can be summarised as object of regret > apology > responder.
Blume-Kulka et al. (1989) proposed a five-place pattern consisting of IFID
> an apology account > expression of responsibility > repair > a promise of
forbearance.
Hypothesis 1
Coulmas suggests a model which is simpler but allows for extension.
Blume-Kulkas set represents a very delicate continuum (in the Hallidayan
sense of the word) and there is less probability that such a set will be
represented in the corpus in its totality, ie. what we can presuppose to
be faced with are empty slots for some parts of Blum-Kulkas schema.
Moreover, if apology is used as eg. a disarming move preceding request (Im
terribly sorry/ but Im afraid youre in my seat.), we can expect modifications
of the above model. Expectations: more diversified sequences will be needed
to describe various communicative strategies associated with apologising.

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Hypothesis 2
The sets were most probably structured with explicit devices of apology
in mind and consequently, they may not be of any help in treating implicit
(deduced, entailed) apologies (the pragmatically bound estimation of the
ratio of explicit and implicit manifestations of politeness is in favour of the
explicit ones). Since this parameter is closely linked with indirectness, its role
will be addressed in the next section.
2. Is indirectness typical of apologies?
There are many linguists who associate indirectness with politeness (for
a survey see URBANOV, 1998), either as a category superordinate to
politeness or as one of the possible manifestations of politeness.
A tentative hypothesis
If we follow EDMONDSONs (1981:280) suggestion viz. to interpret
apologies as instances of socially-sanctioned H-Supportive Behavior (H =
hearer), then indirectness does not seem to be appropriate with apologies (or
thanks), ie. in those situations in which one wants to restore social harmony.
It might be a good strategy with eg. complains. H-Support Maxim is in fact
a different label used by EDMONDSON for LEECHs Tact Principle (cf.
also the instructions given to children, eg. Say you are sorry.).
3. Is the distinction of situational and personal apologies linguistically
relevant?
Hypothesis 1
Though the distinction is well defined in literature, the recognition of
a classifying criterion i.e. whether minor or major offence has been
performed, is dependent on various supportive features of the communicative
situation, e.g. on the particular relationship holding between the interlocutors,
their perception of offensiveness of their actions in a particular context,
etc. Consequently, when tracing the distinction in the Corpus, one has to be
sensitive to a given context. Even then the findings may result in subjective
conclusions, especially if the analyst is a non-native speaker like myself.

135

Hypothesis 2
The solution might be in accepting the notion of a continuum rather
than dichotomy here and (due to the interplay of other factors of a particular
communicative situation) - in interpreting the analysed example as either
closer to situational or personal end of the continuum.
4. Could interlocutors perspective be relevant as a parameter?
The occurrence of such apologies as Im sorry vs. Please forgive me
leads us to the following hypotheses:
Hypothesis 1
Language is looked upon as being ego-centric in general (cf. LANGACERs
(1991) space grammar). This might lead us to the conclusion that apologies
are mostly ego-centric in their language manifestations, i.e. speaker-oriented
(following the I-pattern). Our life experience, however, leads us to the
conclusion, that, in more diplomatic encounters, we ask the addressee for
co-operation and make him responsible for releasing the burden of offence.
As a result, both the perspectives, i.e. speaker oriented as well as addresseeoriented, can be used in succession (Im sorry You must forgive me.).
Hypothesis 2
Since the majority of the strategies suggested by FRASER (see 3.2.1.1) is
ego-centric, i.e. speaker-oriented, high frequency of occurrence of speakeroriented language manifestations can be expected (e.g. Im sorry. vs. Excuse
me).
Hypothesis 3
If hypothesis 2 proves to be the case, then we can presuppose a variety
of language expressions with partly routinized/stereotyped manifestations as
well as some space left for speakers creativity. To what degree, however,
creativity is wanted or unwanted, has something to do with culture-bound
values as well as individuals preferences. Definitely, the one to judge such
values should not primarily be the non-native speaker.

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5. Are apologies one-directional acts redressive for the hearer?

Hypothesis
Unlike BROWN & LEVINSON (1987) who are of the opinion that
apology seems to be one-directional, i.e. redressive for the addressee, I am
inclined to believe that it is at least two-directional, i.e. besides compensating
the offended party it also restores the face of the offender (or at least minimises
damage done to his/her identity). To verify the hypothesis, the fragments
from the LLC will be testified as for their sensitiveness to directionality.
Repairs self-initiated by the offender with no explicit verbal reproach from
the other party might be an answer to my question.
6. Is there any creativeness in apologies?
Here our starting point is COULMAS (1981:3) statement that
interaction in everyday life involves ritual, convention and routine and the
definition of such a routine as specified by the Oxford English Dictionary, i.e.
as a regular cause of procedure; a more or less mechanical or unvarying
performance of certain acts or duties. (See also question 3 above.)
Hypothesis 1
Routines give us time for conversational planning, i.e. being
communicatively regulative rather than communicatively constitutive
components of interactive exchanges, they enable us to focus on the
content of the message, and in this respect contribute to communicative
ease, smoothness, etc. Consequently, their high frequency of occurrence in
apologies is quite predictable. Not much creativity is expected to occur in the
Corpus. Idiosyncratic (individual) routines as well as non-verbal routines will
be left unconsidered here.
Hypothesis 2
One of the ways of how to modify the apologetic expressions is
intensification, as apparent from the following examples:
Im sorry.
Im awfully sorry.
Im really terribly sorry.
The question, however, remains, whether the intensifiers are interpreted
here in their primary intensifying function or in a modified function e.g.

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to signal emotionality (cf. the role of lengthening at various levels of

language representation used for emotional purposes), or increase speakers
responsibility for the offensive bahaviour. The corpus is hoped to supply me
with both quantitative as well as qualitative arguments.
Hypothesis 3
The frequency of occurrence and meaningfulness are said to be inversely
related (HYMES 1962:38). Does it mean that the more the apology routines
are used the less they mean?
The more relevant parameter probably is the usefulness of the expressions
to the speaker, which cannot be explained without reference to the conditions
of their use (cf. again Hallidays (1978) thesis about the need to interpret
speech acts as relative to socio-cultural values).
3.3.4 Corpus-based results with illustrative samples
The description of the findings will follow the questions raised and the
hypotheses listed in section 3.3.3.
Additional findings will be appended in the concluding section. First
of all, however, some general remarks have to be made concerning the
interpretation of the components of the apologising speech-act-set. These
will be introduced in section A, verification of the hypotheses worded in
section 3.3.3 will be commented upon in section B, while miscellaneous
footnotes will be introduced in section C.
A. General remarks
(1) In analysing the LLC samples, I found it more relevant to extend Coulmas
model instead of counting the gaps in the detailed Blum-Kulkas schema,
i.e. the three-place apology pattern ( event > apology > responder) has
been found a sufficient basis for further modifications, since in most of
the examples in LLC, the structure of apologies as a speech-act-set was
very simple, yet some of the manifestations were more creative in their
configurations to be grasped even by the five-place configuration of a
speech-act-sets proposed by Blum-Kulka et al. These will be introduced
in section B.

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(2a) There are contextualized situations in the corpus for which some
of the labels suggested by Coulmas or Fraser have to be modified.
This concerns first of all the label offence used to characterize the
role of event. There are examples in the corpus, in which the event
e.g. represents a temporary loss of memory for which the speaker
apologises. In such cases it would be better to think of a failure
event rather than offence (the term failure event is borrowed from
Suszczynska, 1992).
(2b) Due to the context-bound examples in the LLC, I had to extend the
scope of the notion of event to refer to both real and ficticious events
(in which the speakers apologized for what might have been interpreted
as intervention into the course of addressees events).
The following example will illustrate the situations described in (2a-b)
Example 1
S 1.14 (recorded in 1976) the transcript is simplified for the purposes
of the parameters traced, the symbols, however, remain authentic (cf. LLC:
2125 for explanation).
(A is a male academic aged 60, b is a male businessman, aged 52. A is trying to
entertain b by telling stories.)
A 573
b
A
b
A

b
A
b
A
b

but youre making me think of ANOTHER STORY which//

Ive just [trai].just let me try and remember THIS.
( coughs)
//am I BORING you
no indeed very much go on. <<not a bit - - interesting >>
[] JUST a MOMENT I.// that story Ive just gave
GIVEN you has // made me think of ANOTHER one .
Now // what WAS it ---// SORRY my // memorys
a {LITTLE bit.} []hither and YON SOMETIMES but // this
is at least what thirty YEARS AGO ISNT IT <<2syll>>
never mind youre doing *very* well
[m]
itll come
[m] - - - I // think its slightly FUNNIER story (--- pause about
15 seconds)
[m]

139

A
b

//no Im SORRY its // not <<2 to 4 sylls>> - // NO - .

funny THING the // BRAIN// ISNT it. it sort of
ACTIVATES you //start start [s] some some train of
thought GOING. and //it will it // will play its little
RECORD and // there you ARE - *//YES.// YES*
never mind the brain seems *to be doing all right *well then what happened after that because I
remember Graham coming to live with us when he was
quite a baby at Enton
//YES
that must have been when you went off
[LLC 1980:362]

(3) Another more general remark concerns apologies with performatives.

These have to be taken into consideration as a special subtype, since the
APOLOGY and EVENT can be realised simultaneously (i.e. for example
in Sorry to interrupt you the unpleasant event is performed while making
an apology).
(4) The corpus analysis proved the validity of COULMAS hypothesis
about the existence of a continuum i.e. thanks
apology
sympathy, which has a common property in sharing responsibility,
though while in thanks and apologies, the responsibility is admitted, in
sympathy it is not recognised (i.e. the object of regret does not have to
be indebting for the speaker). The following Example 2 will illustrate the
overlap between apology and sympathy (using the same formula, i.e. (Im
sorry).
Example 2
LLC, S.12, p. 324
B 1169

A
C

140

but // every time I TRIED // writing a a LETTER. Containing

anything at ALL
{that she could//MISCONSTRUE}she MISCONSTRUED it.
And she//cut
OUT little bits{of the LETTER}and //POSTED them{BACK to
me}//
SAYING.how could you SAY this
(- * - laughs)
thats pathological. Oh God*

//well [ ] . so I feel quite SORRY for her// and I can see myself
doing the same THING at // {REALLY} *SOME

times
B. Responses to the questions addressed A commentary on a given
question is far from being a relevant answer: it is rather a sketchy
suggestion of one of the possible ways of how to respond.
1 What kind of a model to apply?
As mentioned before (cf. A(1), the choreography of apologising is not
that regular and linear as proposed by COULMAS or BLUM-KULKA.
Following are the four modifications of the Apology Speech Act Set
which deserve notification and revision of the pattern
APOLOGY
EVENT
JUSTIFICATION
Excuse me/ for calling you by name, Mr Hoover,/but I cant help knowing
who you are with your pictures in all your ads and everything. (A, Breakfast
of Champions )
Vonnegut Jr., Kurt 1974
COMPLAIN
APOLOGY
FORGIVENESS
Youre standing on my foot./Oh, Im sorry./ Thats all right. (A, borrowed
from Fraser)
(EVENT)

APOLOGY
Sorry,

REQUEST FOR REPAIR

could you speak up a little. (A)

APOLOGY as REQUEST
Sorry (= what did you say?) (A)
Here the intonation (with final rise) compensates for the request.
APOLOGY
Im sorry

EVENT
about the mess

DISARMER
how stupid of me
(LLC, p. 281)

or (EVENT-gesture)
APOLOGETIC ACCOUNT
(and he tried to wave me in) I said no Im not coming

APOLOGY
Im sorry
(LLC, p. 360).
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In LLC samples, most of the apologetic situations could be covered by a

simple pattern
Apology-Event, or Event-Apology two-place pattern with no Responder
which, in our view might support the routinized nature of apologies, in
which the hint from the offender towards the offended party is, as it were,
sufficient enough to associate the rest of the shared underlying knowledge of
the whole set.
Conclusion: such findings should modify the theory by
1) explicitly allowing for the variety of language-in-action modifications
2) by explicitly admitting that in current communicative situations each
act from Blum-Kulkas five pattern set, can, in fact, substitute for the
rest, i.e. there can be a zero for the apology slot, yet the remedial act of
apologising can be pragmatically evoked (cf. the shared expectations in
Politeness Principle proposed by Leech).
The following extract from LLC sample will illustrate the situation described
above.
Example 3
S.2.10 (recorded in 1975)
A male merchant banker, age c.30
B female housewife (wife of A), age c. 30
c male computer specialist, age c. 30
C same speaker, but in the last part of the text he is no longer aware of
being recorded
d female research worker, age c. 25.
(The transcript of the extract has been simplified to meet the basic need of
an illustrative sample here.)
Introduction to the sample: the extract begins with a lengthy discussion on
the importance of cleaning up and keeping rooms tidy, etc. B makes frequent
comments on the untidiness of the apartment they are in. Her husbands
attempts (cf. A) to stop her, are unsuccessful. The participants referred to
as c and d (apparently responsible for the place) try to minimise Bs critical
comments. In the concluding section, of which the next sample is an extract,
B tells a story in which she describes her cousins place as an absolute pigsty,
in which he, while writing his thesis, used to throw his children (including his
three month old child) bananas to eat when they were hungry. And this is the
moment in the extract, in which after Bs reinforcement

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B
c remarks
d *[h:m]
B
c
B
A, b, c
A
B

A
d
c
d
B
c

988 //it was an ABSOLUTE PIGSTY - .

I dont think this place is a pigsty.
laughs*
//its NOT a pigsty dont be SILLY of course its NOT
NO this is just
just a few piles of + newspapers around I suppose
<< dont be STUPID>> no No I mean its + very NICE
I mean its PERFECTLY all right for two people
(-laugh)
DEB you are digging a deeper and deeper PIT . and
shortly you will be FORCED
+<<yes>> actually I wish + I wish << you were a HELP>>
actually
ARTHUR << and you could>> sort of come with some
amazingly
diplomatic REMARK instead of in[n] in instead of .
OH DARLING *its FUN watching people* + <<people
digging bigger>> pits +
*youre putting your foot in it again*
+yes I know .oh yes + the only diplomatic way out is to
change the subject very interestingly **(laughs)**
were putting up a lot of shelves **in the other** room
oh ARE you *GOOD*
*(-laughs )
(LLC, pp. 638639)

Legend
As apparent from the overall climate of the content of S.2.10 above,
no act of apology happens to be performed though the remedial act, i.e. to
balance the offensive situation, does happen. The question remains why B,
as an apparent offender, intentionally avoids making an apology. One of
the possible interpretations might be her dominant role (cf. the discussion on
social deixis in Chapter Two) in the communicative situation, another might
be that she went too far in missing many chances to apologise to which
other participants reacted by jokingly mocking remarks and it would be
too costly to her face to apologise after the mocking strategy used by other
participants (in order to finally perform a successful reproach). What made
things difficult was her diplomatic way of avoiding apology, first by reevaluating the implicature i.e. that every untidy place can be called a pigsty

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(its NOT a pigsty), then by shifting responsibility to c (dont be STUPID)

and explicitly re-evaluating the object of regret (no No I mean its + very
NICE I mean its PERFECTLY all right for two people). Nevertheless, she is
mocked at, asks her husband for help (actually I wish + I wish <<you were
a HELP>> actually Arthur) is mocked at again, by which the balance
between the two parties, i.e. the offender and the offended seems to be
restored, and, surprisingly, it is the offended party that comes with the offer
of repair (c the only diplomatic way out is to change the subject very
interestingly).
Now, if we project the above situation into Blum-Kulkas model of a
speech-act-set, we find out that there are more empty slots than fillers offered
by the situation to fill in the slots, cf.
IFID > an apologetic > expressing responsibility> offers of repair> promise of
account
forbearance

(by other party)

2. Is indirectness typical of apologies?

Results: here I base my conclusion on the double nature of apologies, i.e. as
redressive for the hearer (used to compensate for the offensive act) and at the
same time as an act restoring the face of the offender. When trying to trace
how the two roles are visualised in current communicative situations, I must
admit that the LLC offers a variety of cases in which the situation is relevant
enough to compensate for the lack of an explicit mention of the event. As a
result, there is a vague reference to the event by such formulae as Sorry about
that. Besides the intentional avoidance of the suggestion of repair in Example
3 (Sample 2.10) there is a frequent indirect reference to repairs (e.g. a hint)
which is later on extended by the offended party. What seems to be direct are
rather the acts restoring the face of the offender, while the rest is up to the
offended party to deduce since, as mentioned many a time here, both of
them are presupposed to share the knowledge of Politeness Principle. So, the
most frequent substitute for the whole speech act set is the personal apology
signal Sorry/Im sorry.
On the other hand, indirectness can also be linked with verbosity,
as apparent from the example quoted here for different purposes in the

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introductory chapter, in which Monika Lewinsky apologised to The First

Lady and Chelsea (The Daily News, March 31, 1999):
Example 4
I wouldnt dream of asking Chelsea and Mrs. Clinton to forgive me, but I
would ask them to know that I am very sorry for what happened and for
what theyve been through.
3. Is the distinction of situational and personal apologies linguistically
relevant?
(1) With the notion of the continuum in mind, we can still say that the
LLC offers more examples of personal apology, which in the language
manifestation finds its way of representation in a variety of ego-centric,
speaker-oriented, mostly routinized but partly creative expressions.
Such findings, however, are very relative and context dependent. In
a supportive sample from Tennessee Williams (Baby Doll), all the
apologies are performed in an atmosphere of social asymmetry, and the
only consequent way of IFID device is Excuse me.
(2) This is at the same time a partial answer to our question 4, i.e. whether
the distinction of institutionalised vs. private apologies is overtly
signalled by language devices:
the sorry-type tends to be a signal of private apologies,
the excuse me-type of institutionalised, with an overlap of both in the
situation when e.g. a representative of an institution takes the burden
of making an apology as if it were personal. Thus, a bus driver in
U.K. when out of service, apologises by displaying Sorry Im out of
service visibly on the bus.
Since there are only four examples of apologies in the supportive text
(TW) altogether, we will treat them now one by one.
Example 5
Excuse / my yawn./ We went to bed kinda late last night. (TW, 47)
Apology offence- explanation
offensive violation of the norms of social behaviour

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Example 6
SCUSE ME PLEASE! / That ole hen, Fussy has just got back in my
kitchen!
Apology (event= I have to leave) apologetic account (TW, 51)
a subordinate social role, asking for an excuse is predictable as an
institutinalised form of behaviour.
Example 7
Excuse me, I want to get out and I cant get over your legs (TW, 55)
an institutionalised way of how to apologise for interfering into ones
convenience.
Example 8
Mr. Vacarro! excuse me, but I just wouldnt dream! of eating a nut that
a man had cracked in his mouth. (TW, 58)
apology for an intention of the other party to make Baby Doll violate
social etiquette.
The following Ex. 9 does not belong to the supportive (TW) text
and its introduction here should contrast the private apologies with an
institutionalised setting in which the apology was made.
Example 9
Sample S.3.1a (recorded 1976)
(a = male academic, age c.40; A = female prospective undergraduate, age c.
20; B = male academic, age c. 40).
The institutionalised setting here is represented by an admission interview,
during which As essay is discussed and A is asked to read a fragment of it.
a 251
[m] your essay. If I may just cut **across for one moment,**
[m] - - - wed
A
**THANK YOU.//YES**
a
like you to re-read this little passage *beginning* the last paragraph
as an example + <<thats the one>> +
A
(laughs) ** YES// I SEE**
B
+ over to PAGE+ you SEE. to the **//end of ,,syll syll
SYLL>>**
a
where you talk about *connections in that paragraph - *

146

A
B
A

*TERRIBLE//YEAH- -*Im SORRY Im terribly UNUSED

to writing ESSAYS// I havent written them . for SO long now. //
this. came as. you KNOW
// try to READ it as if youre not. *YOURSELF. thats*
*as if it wasnt MINE. All RIGHT*.

Legend
As apparent from the sample, the person referred to as A is in an
unpriviliged position, apparently afraid of the criticism of the essay, which
she wants to diminish by taking the initiative of the accuser herself (cf.
terrible, yeah), immediately followed by an apology, consisting of IFID +
accounts, by which she wants to contribute to the remedial act of soothing
her problems. Thus, we can qualify her apology as an act of self-protecting
behaviour.
5. Are apologies one-directional acts redressive for the hearer?
The Corpus-based samples (cf. also the LLC illustrative samples for
evidence) support the relevance of approaching apologies as two-directional
speech-act-sets, i.e. in one direction they are redressive for the hearer (cf.
also the status of apologies as instances of socially sanctioned H(earer)Supportive Behavior in EDMONDSON, 1981:280); in other direction,
they restore the face of the offender. Both the directions, however, seem to
stream to the unifying goal, i.e. to adverse the unwanted consequences of the
offensive act.
6. Is there any creativeness in apologies?
We can only agree with COULMAS (1981) that part of apologetic
manifestations is based on routines of various kinds. Yet the analysis of
Corpus samples gives evidence of some space left for creativity, which seems
to be of two basic kinds, i.e.
1. creativity in configurations within the speech-act-set
2. and creativity in the choice of language devices used to manifest them.
While the first type of creativity has been discussed in connection with
the Question 1, we will pay attention now to the second type of creativeness

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enriching the ritualised ways of manifestation by the extension of the

predictable patterns, based on the following options:
the inclusion of emphasizers (I do apologize)
emotional expressions (Oh, Oh Lord, Oh God, My goodness)
intensifiers (single, double, repeated), as in Im terribly sorry / Im really
dreadfully sorry/ Im very very sorry.
mitigating devices (please)
Their representation in the LLC, however, was very low.
C. Miscellany
The Corpus-based fragments of apologies made me rethink the validity of
the parameter referred to as the predictability of the object of regret (event).
According to COULMAS (see section 4.2.3.2) predictable interruptive effect
of the negative events asks for anticipatory apologies. In the LLC situations,
many of the anticipatory apologies were used as disarming apologies
(disarmers), ie. as diplomatic ways of how to use a H-Supportive signal in
order to release the burden of the negative effect or diminish its impact on the
hearer. Here LEECHs hypothesis about the overlap of Tact and Politeness
has to be taken into consideration as well (cf. also Ex. 9 above, i.e. the
admission interview).
3.3.5. Apologies in cross-cultural perspective
As EMONDSON (1981:274) put it, when dealing with apologies, we
are in the domain of empirically ascertainable norms of social behavior
which operate for a particular community. To illustrate the validity of
his statement, we can compare language manifestations of a culture-bound
etiquette in letting passengers know that the bus is out of service. In England,
you can read Sorry, Im out of service, while in the Czech lands, Mimo provoz
is the pragmatically expected announcement. In Blum-Kulkas terminology,
we can say that while in the English wording, the institutional apology is
worded as if it were a personal apology of the driver, followed by an event/
object of regret, i.e.
IFID > EVENT
Sorry Im out of service.,
in Czech, a more straightforward, depersonalised language manifestation
based on an event-only strategy, is quite common, i.e.

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IFID > EVENT

Mimo provoz (out of service)

Let me follow COULMAS (1981) again for his explicit wording of the
danger associated with the cross-cultural comparison: the risk is particularly
high he argues that the foreign language user sticks to the underlying rules
governing the usage of the corresponding phrases in his mother tongue.
(Coulmas, 1981:69).
To illustrate the English-Czech interface again, lets look for a functional
equivalent of the prototypical role of Im sorry in such instructions as Say
you are sorry, by which children in particular are socialised into politeness
etiquette. In Czech, though similar formulae are in existence, e.g. Lituji toho/
Je mi to lto, the prototypical phrase to make sb. apologise is say Promi/te.
Thus, while the English prototype follows a speaker-centred strategy, the
Czech one is hearer-oriented.
Such findings have far-reaching consequences for foreign language
teaching as well as translating and interpreting. The process can be well
described as the transfer of pragmatic rules and with such transfers there is
always a potential danger of inference.
An outline of the consequences for second language acquisition will
be introduced in the concluding Chapter Four. Though the majority of our
tentative conclusions has been already introduced in connection with the
answers to the six relevant questions to solve, we would like to focus on
some generalisations now.
Concluding remarks
Apology as a part of remedial exchange occurs almost in all types of
discourse from everyday encounters to scientific discourses. The fact
that a social man can fail to fulfil social or personal expectations in
the multiple social roles s/he is in makes him/her face the situations in
which s/he is expected to apologise, partly not to loose his/her face, partly
to diminish the impact of his/her bad behaviour on the addressee.
Apologies, though probably universal in the general human need to
express regret over offensive acts (and perhaps also universal in the basic
three discrete steps to make, i.e. an offense apology acceptance) are
language manifestations of socio-cultural norms and values recognized
in particular cultural communities and as such, projected into culturespecific configurations of communicative strategies, or which language
manifestations are relevant consequences.

149

Similarly to addressing (cf. Chapter Two), apologising as a process seems

to activate both the paradigmatic axis of alternation rules, resulting in
language and culture-specific varieties, whose preferences are determined
by various factors of communicative situation (social role of interactants,
their age, sex; style differences; register differences, etc.), cf. the nine
strategies discussed here in 3.2.1.1), by which IFID can be linguistically
manifested, cf.
IFID
Sorry
Excuse me
I apologize for
Forgive me
You must forgive me
I regret that
Im afraid
and the syntagmatic axis of co-occurrence rules resulting in various
configurations within the speech-act-set APOLOGY (see the discussion
here in 3.2.2 but mainly in 3.3.4.B1), i.e. IFID > apologetic account >
expressing responsibility > offers of repair > promise of forbearance
but also in various simpler configurations (including IFID only, i.e.
Sorry to compensate for the rest).
The overt language manifestations of apologies represent what
MATHESIUS (1911) referred to as the potentiality of the phenomena of
language: they are at language users disposal, but need not necessarily be
activated in fixed configurations. What seems, however, to be routinised, is
the language manifestation of IFID strategies. Here creativity finds a limited
way of manifestation in language economy (Sorry) or extensions due to
the above mentioned emotional, emphasizing, intensifying or mitigating
devices.
So the task for the ethnographers of communication, teachers as well as
translators (interpreters) is to be sensitive to the adequate activation of both
the above mentioned axes as well as to the culture-bound tradition activated
in processing apologies.

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Chapter Four
POLITENESS IN SECOND LANGUAGE
ACQUISITION AN OUTLINE
4.1

State of the art

There is obviously a long list of linguists interested in politeness and we

can also trace a strong tendency towards including politeness phenomena into
foreign and second language teaching. According to the number of books and
articles dealing with the topic, one might expect that it is something really
in, finding its realisation in course-books, namely those labelled as a truly
communicative course. Unfortunately, the tendency still remains rather
theoretical (i.e. dealt with in books on language teaching) than practical (i.e.
being an inseparable part of language course-books.) We are aware of the
fact that the course-books for beginners can hardly be full of useful polite
phrases but even at this stage of learning a foreign language, BROWN &
YULE (1991:28) proposed that it seems to be natural to teach the beginning
learner appropriate language for participating in simple conversations.
As an example they introduce polite disagreeing because they feel that
disagreement should be expressed in a roundabout way e.g.
well not really
not quite no
perhaps not quite as bad/good/difficult, as that
erm, I dont know.
So it seems to be clear that students need to be aware of different ways
language is used in different situations, in other words they need to know
how to get language to do what we want it to do in the right circumstances.
They should know the difference between formal and informal language use
(i.e. they should know for example when they can get away with sorry
and when it would be better to say I really must apologise). There are, of
course, many factors influencing the process of teaching language functions
but we can agree with HARMER (1991: 25) that it is safe to say that easy,
transparent and neutral realizations of a language function are better for
students at lower levels whereas difficulty, lack of transparency and extremes
of formality (and informality) are more suitable for more advanced students.

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However, even the students at lower levels should be taught that there are
many things affecting how we choose the words we use, for example:
a) Setting
Where are we when we use language? What situation are we in?
b) Participants
Who is taking part in the language exchange?
c) Purpose
What is the purpose of the speaker or writer? or put in other words,
What is his/her communicative intention?.
d) Channel
Is it a written or spoken communication? If spoken:
Is it a face-to-face interaction? Does it take place over the telephone?
e) Topic
What is the message about? And, consequently, what are the utterances,
phrases and words about?
Methodologists say that native speakers have communicative
competence that is a subconscious knowledge of language use. Part of the
communicative competence is represented by socio-cultural knowledge and
experience (including linguistic etiquette). In SLA, however, only part of the
competence can but need not necessarily be shared, and hence should be
taught together with grammatical competence and lexical knowledge.
Taking all these things into consideration one would expect that coursebooks, especially those written by native speakers, will reflect all the findings
and will help students to gain the ability to use language appropriately.
In fact, when skimming through the textbooks, it is sometimes difficult
to find anything that could be tailored to the needs of a cultural awareness
teaching. What we are rather faced with instead are texts and the follow-up
tasks which could be labelled cultural awareness-free.
It goes beyond the scope of this section to give detailed analyses of all
the possible course-books used in our republic at present. What we would
like to do is exemplify by randomly selected data that not all the authors of
teaching materials are sensitive to making politeness an inseparable part of
their books and that even if they give teachers notes providing quite detailed

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guidance on how to present the material, teachers are not advised to explain
that some structures commonly used in one society can be strange or even
rude in another because of different strategies that underlie the consequent
overt language manifestations.
Having discussed the problem with native speakers I came to the
conclusion that native speakers are less tolerant to those structures that would
be accepted not only as impolite but even rude, and interpreted as a Face
Threatening Act, than to grammatical mistakes. This is what differentiates
native speakers from non-native speakers or competent language users from
incompetent ones. That is why I feel that the dimension of linguistic etiquette
should become an integral part of any field of linguistic treatment since every
field is sensitive to its manifestation and course-books should teach not
only about language but also how to use it in a communicatively appropriate
way in order to create a happy situation of communication.
Now some examples will be introduced to illustrate the situation.
1) At the very beginning of Project English 1(Teachers Book) by Tom
Hutchinson, which is still in use at our schools, teachers, in order to
use only English in the classroom, are advised to incorporate into their
language of instructions classroom commands of the type Stand up.
Sit down. Come here. There is, however, no mention of the possibility
to use those commands in a more polite, e.g. with please, as well as of
the fact that pupils are expected to use the magic word when talking
to someone older, superior, etc. Issuing commands in general and using
imperatives in particular is taught in the same way. On the other hand,
with no methodological reasoning behind, pupils are exposed to please
when pronouns this and that or time is introduced (p. 36 and 39)
Can I have this/that book, please?
Whats the time, please?
In the new version of this course-book, cf. Project 1 published in 2003,
the situation unfortunately remains the same. Pupils learn classroom
instructions, such as Give me your pen. Close your book. ( p.11 in the
Students Book) and though they are faced with please several times (cf.
a dialogue taking place in a restaurant) , the only cultural background note
in the Teachers Book (p.70) concerns the explanation of the notion of fast
food restaurants:

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Waitress:
Mickey:
Waitress:
Mickey:

Yes, please?
Can I have a hot dog and an orange juice, please?
Small or large?
Large, please.

There is, however, a politeness strategy introduced in Project English 1.,

viz. that of making excuses. The structure taught is as follows:
A Lets go to the cinema on Monday.
B No. I cant go on Monday. I must go to the disco.
The aim of this exercise is to make as many excuses as possible and the
winner is the one who made the most. Again, teachers are not advised to
explain that such a form of excuse would not be used by native speakers
nor would it be accepted as a polite form of excuse (unless in a very
familiar in-group setting). So the lack of socio-cultural awareness seems
to be the characteristic feature of this textbook as a whole.
2) In Project English 2 (p.25) pupils learn to describe a historical event
Roving
Reporter is interviewing King Henry VIII:
Excuse me, your Majesty, or can I call you King? Can you tell
me about Mary Rose?
We think that this would be a good opportunity to introduce the general
bases of addressing in English but nothing is mentioned in the Teachers
Book.
Instead, the teachers are expected to focus on the presence/absence of
articles with geographical names (p. 67).
3) Another example of cultural awareness-free dialogue comes from Open
Doors 1 (Teachers Book, p. 31). Students are supposed to listen to the
cassette and complete the family tree:
Girl
Who are they?
Don
Their names are Lucy and Julius.
Girl
Julius! Oh, what a terrible name.
Don
I know. Anyway, theyre my aunt and uncle.

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Teachers using the textbook are advised to explain the meaning of any
words that students do not know. They are, quite surprisingly, not advised to
explain that such a reaction (cf. Girl in turn 3 above) would be perceived not
only as impolite but as rather rude by native speakers.
I could go on with the series of missed opportunities but instead, I
would also like to say that not all the textbooks can be characterised as
lacking responsibility for the linguistic etiquette. It is, however, a pity
that there are so big differences between the course-books and only some
students then have the advantage of learning strategies and skills typical of
interactions in current conversation.
We decided to choose one example connected with the previous chapter on
apologising (cf.Chapter Three). The example is taken from the course-book
Streetwise Intermediate (Teachers Book, p. 72). Students are supposed to
listen to four different conversations and their first task is to identify who
the people are, where they are, and what the problem is. Then they listen to
the cassette again and write down the expressions the speakers use to make
complaints and to apologise. They also try to remember which of the speakers
sounded aggressive and why and the last task is to say how the aggressive
speakers could sound more polite. Teachers are also suggested to:
* Make sure students understand that unless you are complaining to family
or close friends, it is usually more polite and effective to introduce a
complaint indirectly.
* Before students do the practice exercise, teachers should elicit any more
expression they could use to make polite complaints, e.g. Ive got a bit of
a problem, you seeI hope you dont mind but; or apologize, e.g. Its
my fault, How stupid of me, etc..
In the same course-book students are for example taught to express
disagreement. They are given the following list of expressions:
Rubbish!
I dont think thats really true.
Nonsense!
It s not true!
Im not sure that I agree with that.
You must be joking.

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With the task to order the expressions from the least polite to the most
polite. Teachers are asked to impress on students that it is usually important
to be polite even when we disagree with people.
I think that exercises of this type are very useful and can help students
to realize that there are different ways of expressing the same depending on
various communicative situations and this also might be the way of raising
their sensitivity to the politeness phenomena in a target culture but also in a
cross-cultural perspective.
As shown in the previous examples, it is not always easy to find activities
which would be tailored to suit the truly communicative course label.
Fortunately, teachers who want to include politeness into their syllabus do
not have to rely on the rather pedagogic texts of the course-books only.
As a starting point for language teachers who want to teach their students
when to speak, when not, what to talk about with whom, when, where
and in what manner HYMES (1972:277), I would suggest as a theoretical
basis the two following studies: Pragmatics in Language teaching and
Sociolinguistics and Language Teaching which were among the first
books devoted to the problems of educational implications of pragmatics and
sociolinguistic research (see References).
In their search for supplementary practical materials teachers can either
use traditional printed materials or with new technologies, the Internet can
serve as a good source. From the first group of materials, I would like to
name Intercultural Activities by Simon Gill and Michaela akov (2002),
namely the unit based on Politeness and Social Behaviour. Generally
speaking, all the activities in the book are designed to develop a sharing of
knowledge and mutual understanding of each others cultures by giving equal
emphasis to learners understanding of other cultures and ability do describe
their own. (op. cit.: p. 2).
As for the Internet, we entered the phrase teaching linguistic politeness
in Google and obtained 8.510 links. It goes beyond the scope of this chapter
to comment on all the links but what we think might interest teachers are the
practical ones. To name just some, on the web pages of U.S. Department of
State http://exchanges.state.gov/education/engteaching/pragmatics.htm it is
possible to find a collection of 30 lessons that can help English learners use
socially appropriate language in a variety of informal and formal situations
called Teaching Pragmatics. There are several areas like conversational
management, conversational openings and closings, requests, etc. with

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detailed lesson plans, level of students knowledge, goals and descriptions of

activities.
To conclude this section, we must admit that compared with the situation
several years ago, for the teachers who feel that the component of linguistic
politeness is neglected the possibilities are wider and if they are initiative
enough, their students do not have to be handicapped in this way.
4.2

Implications for second language acquisition

Since the suggestions for ELT and SLA are scattered throughout the whole
study (due to our aim to increase sensitiveness to the possible applicability
of both the theoretical and data-based practical findings), only a brief survey
will echo our previous attempts.
I definitely agree with Ardith J. Meier, who, in the article entitled
Teaching the Universals of Politeness published in ELT Journal in 1997
criticises Brown and Levinson for their desire to perceive politeness as
a static category, as well as for giving language devices the same value
across languages, and last but not least for their claim for a straightforward
relationship between indirectness and politeness, if not identification of
indirectness and politeness. Their rules of politeness should not form a
relevant basis for teaching politeness phenomena in foreign and second
language teaching. Rather, according to Meier, we should perceive politeness
as a dynamic category and the most useful approach to politeness is via
appropriateness. So instead of introducing normative lists of lexical items
and sets of frozen phrases, cultural awareness and sensitivity to particular
communicative situations need to be the focus. Learners do not have to
internalise a particular culture but the goal, as stated in the article, should be
to get the student to begin looking for the reasons behind human behavior.
From the point of view of textbook authors, I would prioritise the
application of the following findings:
1. Politeness is a scalar notion, it comes in degrees appropriate to a given
communicative situation. Consequently, the binary treatment and
classification of politeness devices into polite and impolite is inappropriate
and correspond neither to current communicative situations nor to their
language manifestation, i.e. authentic, language-in-action data.
2. Devices of linguistic politeness should be relevantly described and not
only authoritatively (and in a simplified way) prescribed. (With the
existence of language corpora accessible, cf. e.g. the British National

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Corpus, the task is far from being an idle wish). The empirical analyses,
however, have to be theoretically informed (G. Eelen, 2001:254).
3. The norms of politeness in a target language (similarly to the norms in
a source language) have to be seen as overt language manifestations of
culture-bound choices and preferences that are very often far from being
intercultural in their communicative impact on the respective language
users. Consequently, any automatic transfer of the politeness strategies
from one language community to another, may result in unwanted
culture bumps.
It would be ideal if there were enough teaching (instructive) notes in
each of the course-books in different situations helping teachers and students
to understand not only what the communication is about but how people
communicate just the way they do and why. But the reality is different and we
can only agree with Soledad Moreno Pichastor who in the article Politeness
and Textbooks: how to approach the teaching of communicative competence
in a second language (2004) concludes by saying that
there is still a long way before pragmatics can be taught in an organised
and principled way so that the learner is presented with a coherent
functional syllabus instead of finding bits of politeness strategies scattered
along the textbook units without any clear organising principle.

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CONCLUDING REMARKS
For the reasons specified in Chapter One, the present study is interdisciplinary
in approach, with the focus on sociolinguistic and pragmatic aspects of
language, as projected into the language manifestation of politeness strategies,
underlying language manifestations of what is often referred to as linguistic
etiquette. For such a vast area of research and a multifaceted nature of
politeness, it was necessary to narrow the scope to a defined set of strategies
and their language manifestations. As a result, attention has been primarily
paid to addressing and forms of address (Chapter Two) and apologising and
forms of apologies (Chapter Three).
The preference for the two strategies, explained in the introductory
chapter, was rather pragmatic in nature: the forms of address have been chosen
because I wanted to begin with tracing those strategies of politeness by which
the participants of communication exchange interpretative cues to their
respective manifestations of social deixis (cf. the semantics of power/distance
or solidarity/camaraderie). The analysis of the selected samples of three
different discourse types, i.e. phone-in-talk show, impeachment hearings, and
dramatic discourse, enabled me to trace addresses from ad hoc negotiations to
standardized routines.
The most essential finding from tracing politeness in the forms of address
is a need of a multifaceted (as opposed to a one-directional) and dynamic
approach to the politeness encoded in them, since, for example, within a single
phone-in call, the form of address can undergo unpredictable changes due to
the change in likemindedness, deference, etc. The corpus-bound examples
give sufficient evidence of such shifts in social deixis and the consequent
changes in politeness manifestation.
As for apologies, the main reason for their inclusion was my intention to
trace how politeness is manifested when a social man fails to fulfil social or
personal expectations associated with the multiple social roles he is in and
in order not to lose his face and at the same time not to threaten the face
of the other, feels the need to make a hearer-redressive act (cf. the status of
apologies as instances of socially sanctioned H(earer)-Supportive Behavior
in Edmondson, 1981), and at the same time a self-defensive remedial act of
apologizing, or rather, initiates a speech-act-set of apologising performed in
collaboration with the responsive-contribution of the hearer (addressee).

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The speech-act-set components of apologising, as suggested by

BLUM-KULKA et al. 1989, i.e. a five-place-pattern consisting of IFID +
an apologetic account + expressing responsibility + offers of repair +
promise of forbearance were found useful as an ideal prototype but far
from real communicative situations, in which much simpler patterns were
disclosed behind the LLC examples of apologies. On the other hand, however,
components that do not appear in Blum-Kulkas model have to be taken into
consideration, such as request for understanding, a soothing remedy,
requests for repair, or a disarmer. The most frequent model in the LLC
was a three-place pattern of an apologetic set with such configurations as
IFID EVENT DISARMER (Im sorry about the mess, how stupid of
me, LLC:281), or EVENT (gesture) APOLOGETIC ACCOUNT IFID
(and he tried to wave me in) I said no Im not coming Im sorry, LLC: 360),
APOLOGY EVENT JUSTIFICATION (Excuse me for calling you by
name, Mr. Hoover, but I cant help knowing who you are with your pictures in
all your ads and everything.), etc.
Language economy, probably, is the main cause of the existence of
two-place patterns of apologies based on a prototypical (Im) Sorry (Thats)
OK pattern (reflecting the Speaker-Hearer collaboration). Seen from a
cross-cultural perspective, however, this pattern is not universal, as apparent
from the English-Czech interface, outlined in the study. While in Czech, e.g.
an apologetic account can substitute for the whole speech-act-set, in English,
the IFID is a necessary component, as can be illustrated by the comparison of
Sorry, Im out of service. vs. Mimo provoz displayed in the buses (or trams).
Though most of the corpus-based apologies were based on routine, there
was an evidence of a space left for creativity in LLC, which seems to be
of two kinds: creativity in configurations of elements within an apologetic
speech-act-set, and creativity in the choice of language devices used to
manifest them (cf. the inclusion of emphasizers as in I do apologize), emotion
expressions (Oh, Oh Lord, My gogoodness), intensifiers (single, double,
repeated, as in Im terribly sorry, Im really dreadfully sorry, Im very very
sorry), and mitigating devices, e.g. please).
The corpus-based analysis not only enables one to shed light on the
strategies used, it can also provide information about the situations in which
specific types of apologies are deemed appropriate by native speakers which
is crucial for SLA and TESOL application.
The sociolinguistic approach enabled me to collect data not only on
apologies but also on when and under what conditions such remedial acts
are felt to be called for, thus answering the how but also how frequently.

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To me, the present study represents a phase of a long-term-researchproject on linguistic politeness (in which attention will be paid in the future
to politeness in compliments, disagreements and partly to requests (since the
literature on requests is more representative than the studies on any other
politeness manifestation). The focus in this phase was on communicative
strategies, with linguistic means understood as their consequences (occurring
in various configurations due to the activation of a paradigmatic axis of
alternation rules of choice, i.e. whether Sir, Professor, Mr. Brown or Paul and
a syntagmatic axis of co-occurrence: e.g. if Professor, then whimperative rather
than imperative, good morning rather than Hi, etc.). In the future, attention will
be paid to a detailed analysis of linguistic politeness proper.
In an on-line process of negotiation, discrete manifestations of politeness
have been looked upon as particular points on an imaginary scale of politeness
(rather than approached as realisations of binary opposition of polite and
impolite language devices). Other scales that have been taken into consideration
were the scale of indirectness (inspired by URBANOVs 1998 findings about
the role of indirectness in politeness) and the scale of ritualisation ranging from
ceremonial idioms to a creative ad hoc usage.
In sociological dimension, following HALLIDAYs (1978) conception
of language as social semiotics, the scale from power to solidarity has been
widely applied in the treatment of the forms of address and their contextsensitive nature (BROWN & GILMAN, 1960).
The restrictions in this study do not concern only the limitations within
the content of the notion of politeness. The dept for the future is in the
present restriction of my approach to the analysis of segmental units,
though, as explicitly stated in the present study, the crucial contribution of
suprasegmental units to the interpretation of politeness encoded and politeness
decoded is beyond any doubt. To treat both would be ideal but too demanding
in the phase of my preliminary mapping of the field, in which segmental units
offered a more reliable matrix to grasp and analyse, and in Prof. Macheks
view (PhD. seminar discussion), the interpretation of written texts is filtered
through the suprasegmental units anyway.
The aim here was twofold: first to approach politeness as a cultureand tradition-bound domain of communicative strategies, trace various
approaches by which it has been treated so far (speech act theory,
ethnography of communication, conversational analysis, cross-cultural
pragmatics, etc.) and find a theoretical framework within which to discuss
selected language data. Second, to project the strategies of addressing and
apologising into corpus-bound samples of language use and outline my future

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intention to focus on a cross-cultural interface of English and Czech in this

field of research (with VACHEKs characterology of both the language types
in mind and the consequent possibilities opened to their respective language
users; and WIERZBICKAs culture-bound priorities in both the hierarchy of
strategies and their language reflections).
If it is not too immodest to state, the theoretical framework I had in
mind in both the taxonomies applied and methods of analysis preferred was
the framework of a functional and systemic grammar as advocated by the
Prague school scholars and their followers. As stated many a time in the
surveys of the Prague School achievements (cf. VACHEK, 1966; ERMK,
1995), the framework, though rooted in tradition is open to new linguistic
trends and enables one to projects language findings into systems, and
trace the system-bound functions. Such properties offer relevant approach
to cross-language comparison as well as to the applied insight into second
language acquisition.
The outline of the possibilities opened for further research in SLE
and TESOL have been surveyed in the closing Chapter Four. Here, the
main conclusion for further research can be summarised in the following
way: the notions of positive or negative politeness, as introduced into
the theory of politeness by BROWN & LEVINSON (1987), were found
to be too ethnocentric (Anglo-centric) to be applicable to other cultures
(WIERZBICKA, 1991). The criterion of culture-bound appropriatness
and awarness to target language situation-bound usage seem to be more
relevant for the non-native users perception of similarities and differences in
linguistic etiquette. (As COULMAS 1981:69) pointed out If I know how to
say Im sorry in another language, we still dont know when to say it and to
whom we should say it according to the norms of interaction of the respective
community.) The present state of the art in our textbooks does not seem
to reflect such findings. Instead, in the textbooks analysed, a simplifying
method of translating politeness formulas from language to language
with a menu of lexical items functioning as magic words regardless of
culture-bound preferences, seems to prevail. Here is another challenge for
future research: some previous knowledge other than strictly linguistic is
needed before writing textbooks and when writing them, the penetration
into social, linguistic and cultural ecosystem of a target- language user should
be reflected in the way of presentation.
Politeness is neither the domain liable to exact taxonomies nor the domain
liable to exact quantification. Supported by vagueness and indirectness

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 politeness forces a functional analyst to think of tendencies rather than

rules, and of prototypical configurations of the features of communicative
situations which dynamically shape language devices into the final effect.
There are many shortcomings in the present thesis, which to me are
challenges for the future. I personally would have liked to see the investigation
based on a wider corpus, and one might also prefer more tabular summaries
based on less restricted evidence. Though the introductory chapter might give
one the impression to the contrary, I have written it with the hope that it will
be more than a mental excercise.
So, with the hope that Blum-Kulkas five-place-pattern of apology might
help:
Im really very sorry to have failed in many respects, and since I can
imagine how you feel about it, I promise to compensate for it in the
future.

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Resum
Prce nazvan Zdvoilost jako komunikativn strategie a jazykov manifestace si klade za cl zmapovat oblast zdvoilosti, kter byla v tradinch
modelech jazykov analzy buto pehlena nebo vnmna jako samozejm soust kadodenn komunikace.
Jak u sm nzev napovd, zdvoilost je chpna jednak jako s komunikativnch strategi (uplatovanch ped, v prbhu a po skonen komunikace), jednak jako jazykov manifestace, na jejm ztvrnn se podlej
ve sloit souhe prostedky rznch rovin jazyka. K dosaen relevantnch
zvr byly brny v vahu dva pedpoklady:
1) Jev, jakm je zdvoilost, vyaduje interdisciplinrn pstup. Nen mon jej zkoumat izolovan, ale je nutn pistupovat k nmu z nkolika
hledisek a vyuvat poznatk dalch obor, kter se zabvaj rznmi
aspekty fungovn jazyka, tzn. zahrnout perspektivu psychologickou, sociolingvistickou, teorii komunikace obecn i poznatky z etnografie komunikace. Vzhledem k tomu, e neoddlitelnou soust celistvho popisu
jazykovch jev je i znalost tradice, ritul, a funknch stereotyp, povaujeme za nutnou soust interdisciplinrnho pstupu i pragmatiku,
a to jak pragmatiku vnj (extern), tj. nae obecn vdomosti o svt,
tak pragmatiku vnitn (intern), nkdy tak oznaovanou jako pragmalingvistika, tj. nae zkuenosti s konkrtnmi jazykovmi manifestacemi
a jejich funkc v dan jazykov komunit.
2) Druh pedpoklad je spojen se stupnm univerzlnosti danho jevu.
Meme pedpokldat, e nkter zdvoilostn strategie existuj v rznch jazycch. Na druh stran vak nae pracovn hypotza pedpokld
existenci jev jazykov specifickch, danch jazykovou etiketou, vzniklou v uritm kulturnm kontextu.
V vodu prce je zeno pole psobnosti vzkum se omezuje pouze na
komunikaci verbln (s odvodnnm vylouenm suprasegmentlnch jev,
kter jsou v tto fzi vzkumu brny v vahu spe implicitn), konkrtn na
jazykov ztvrnn tch komunikativnch strategi, kter jsou spjaty s oslovovnm a omlouvnm se.

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Prce je lenna do nsledujcch kapitol:

1. kapitola Teoretick rmec (dosavadn zkoumn v dan oblasti)
2. kapitola Zdvoilost a sociln deixe
3. kapitola Zdvoilost a omluvy
4. kapitola Zdvoilost ve vuce cizho jazyka (nstin)
Prvn kapitola je pokusem o shrnut dosavadnho bdn o zdvoilosti
a zrove vytv teoretick rmec, kter je aplikovn v dalch stech prce.
Soust tto kapitoly jsou koncepce a zkladn mylenky vnmn zdvoilosti, jak je uvdj jednotliv lingvist (nap. Coulmas, Watts, Ide a dal).
Podrobnji je vysvtlena teorie Penelope Brownov a Stephena Levinsona
o pozitivn a negativn zdvoilosti, kter pedpokld, e lovk jako len urit spolenosti m dv rzn tve negativn (snaha o sebeuplatnn, touha
neruen jednat) a pozitivn (touha zskat uznn). Uplatnn jejich teorie je
vak problematick, a to ze dvou dvod. Prvnm z nich je obtnost aplikace tto teorie pi analze autentickho jazykovho materilu a druhm, jak
uvd Wierzbick, je fakt, e tento model je pli etnocentrick, vychzejc
z anglosask kultury.
Otzky, ktermi se v tto kapitole dle zabvm, jsou vztah zdvoilosti
a taktu, vztah zdvoilosti a nepmosti (mezi tyto dva jevy bv pi pojednn
o zdvoilosti velmi asto kladeno rovntko) a dle vztah zdvoilosti a neformlnosti.
Podstatn st tto pevn teoretick kapitoly je vnovna autorm
a studim, kter pojednvaj o zdvoilosti a jejm jazykovm ztvrnn systematicky, v kontextu posunu badatelskho zjmu 70. let od jazyka jako
abstraktnho konstruktu (langue) ke konkrtnm eovm realizacm (parole). Diskutovny jsou koncepce R. Lakoffov, G. N. Leeche, P. Brownov
a S. Levinsona, E. Sifianou, A. Wierzbick, F. Coulmase, ale i studie esk
(vehlov, Knittlov, Kufnerov).
V zvru 1. kapitoly je formulovna vlastn pracovn definice zdvoilosti:
Lingvistick zdvoilost je sten rutinn a sten kreativn jazykov
manifestace spoleenskch hodnot. Projevuje se v rznch rovinch jazyka
(zvukov, gramatick, lexikln, textov atd.) a odr interakn strategie,
jimi si astnci komunikace signalizuj vzjemnou podporu, tj. vzjemnou

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ohleduplnost a snahu naplnit oekvn kulturnch a situanch premis tak,

aby zabrnili projevm ohroujcm jejich vlastn tv nebo je pinejmenm
zmrnili, aby tak vytvoili pjemn podmnky pro vzjemnou interakci.
Nemn dleitou soust tto kapitoly jsou i vahy o vnmn zdvoilosti a vymezen parametr, ktermi je mono ji posuzovat tzn. zda se
pohybujeme v oblasti pravidel, princip, maxim i v psychologick oblasti
pocit. Pedstavujeme tak nzory rznch lingvist (Lakoffov, Brownov
a Levinson, Tannenov a Coulmas) na danou problematiku. Na ilustrativnch
pkladech je naznaena sloitost kvantifikace jazykovch projev zdvoilosti (vetn mlen jako aktu zdvoilosti).
Druh kapitola Zdvoilost a sociln deixe postupuje od sti teoretick k praktick aplikaci. V rmci teorie je uplatnna pedevm Hallidayova
koncepce jazyka jako sociln smiotiky a jeho pohled na lovka jako tvora
spoleenskho. Pnos tto kapitoly vidme pedevm v tom, e nezkoum
mon statick konfigurace osloven (rozpracovno detailn nap. v americk
anglitin Bellem) a pravidla oslovovn, ale zamuje se na dynamick aspekt souhry smantiky moci a smantiky solidrnosti v prbhu komunikace, s clem zdraznit potebu funknho, kontextov citlivho pstupu
k formm oslovovn, kter se objevuj v prbhu interakce.
K oven teoretickch poznatk a hypotz byl vybrn nsledujc materil:
a) Transkribovan korpus Radio Phone-in Talk Show (poad vyslan v rdiu v USA). Tento materil byl se souhlasem pevzat z doktorandsk
prce PhDr. Milana Ferenka, M.A., UPJ Preov (viz Reference) a to
zejmna proto, e spluje parametry, kter ml hledan materil splovat
lid jsou nuceni se vzjemn oslovovat tak, aby k sob byli zdvoil,
a zrove mus bt ve vbru osloven citliv ke kontextu a k mnc se
komunikativn situaci (nzorov shoda, projevy nesouhlasu, odmenost
volajcch apod.). Vsledky analzy deseti hovor jsou uvedeny v pehledn tabulce.
b) Dokument ze soudnho vyetovn Clinton Lewinsk (Internet). Tento
materil je pkladem formln procedurln komunikace, s relativn
pevnmi pravidly chovn astnk, proto i formy osloven jsou spe
ritualizovan ne spontnn. Z tohoto dvodu je mono chpat vyetovn jako kontrast k pedchozmu materilu a jako korpus, kter podporuje

167

tvrzen Richarda Wattse, e oslovovn me bt povaovno za akt taktickho verblnho chovn spe ne za projev jazykov zdvoilosti.
c) Pro srovnn anglitiny a etiny v dan oblasti byla vybrna divadeln
hra Edwarda Albeeho Kdopak by se Kafky bl. Tento materil slouil
k oven hypotzy o jistm stupni monotnnosti pi signalizaci zdvoilosti v anglickm oslovovn a naopak vt npaditosti v etin.
Porovnn anglickho a eskho textu nejen potvrdilo pravdivost dan
hypotzy, ale poukzalo i na typologicky podmnn monosti kreativnho pstupu k oslovovn.
Zkoumnm vech uvedench materil jsem doli k nsledujcm zvrm:
Pomr mezi dynamickm, kontextov-citlivm zpsobem oslovovn
a statickm, jednotnm zpsobem oslovovn je zhruba 88 %:12 %. Tyto
vsledky podporuj uitenost hypotzy o tom, e oslovovn je manifestac
dynamick aktivace jak paradigmatick osy (tj. monosti vbru rznch lexiklnch jednotek, nap. pane profesore, Tome atd.), tak osy syntagmatick
(tj. aktivace vztah mezi jednotkami, nap. vbr osloven pane profesore implikuje vbr spisovnch gramatickch struktur, pelivou vslovnost atd.).
Oslovovn je jevem citlivm ke zmnm faktor ovlivujcch komunikativn situaci.
Tet kapitola Zdvoilost a omluvy uvd jazykovou zdvoilost do
souvislosti s teori eovch akt a teori konverzan analzy. eov akty
mohou bt chpny jako nemnn abstraktn kategorie, my se vak piklnme k pojet Coulmase, kter chpe eov akty jako definovan v uritm
spoleensko-kulturnm a jazykovm systmu. V tomto rmci jsou potom
zkoumny omluvy.
Materilem, s nm pracujeme v tto kapitole, je psan verze potaovho korpusu oznaovanho jako London-Lund korpus.
Zpsob zpracovn je nsledujc: vzhledem k tomu, e existuje velk
mnostv literatury o omluvch, uvdme jen strun nstin zkladnch mylenek. Pot jsou stanoveny hypotzy jednak na zklad literatury, jednak zaloen na vlastn intuici. V rmci jednotlivch hypotz analyzujeme pklady
vybran z korpusu a komentujeme vsledky. Zjitn jsou doplnna pklady
a tabulkami.

168

Zvry tto kapitoly se strun daj shrnout takto:

omluvy se objevuj tm ve vech typech konverzace (lovk jako tvor
spoleensk se ocit v situacch, kdy se od nj oekv omluva jednak
aby sm neztrcel tv, jednak aby zmrnil nsledky svho negativnho
chovn)
akoli jsou omluvy univerzln ve smyslu lidsk poteby vyjdit svou
ltost, jejich konkrtn realizace jsou ovlivnny spoleensko-kulturnmi
normami t kter spolenosti
stejn jako oslovovn i omluvy aktivuj jak paradigmatickou, tak syntagmatickou osu, tj. pravidla alternace i pravidla souvskytu.
jazykov manifestace omluv jsou pkladem toho, co Mathesius nazval
potencilnost jazykovch jev: jsou k dispozici uivatelm jazyka, nejsou vak nutn aktivovny v pevnch konfiguracch.
tvrt kapitola je nstinem pstupu ke zdvoilosti a jazykov etiket ve
vuce anglitiny, tj. zdvoilosti jako sousti jazykov vuky. Akoli existuje
velk mnostv literatury o zdvoilosti a tendence didaktik zahrnout zdvoilostn jevy do vuky anglitiny, analyzovan uebnice svd ve vtin
ppad o opaku. Jsme si vdomi toho, e uebnice pro zatenky mohou
jen zt obsahovat vt mnostv zdvoilostnch frz, ale i v tomto stadiu
vuky jazyka pokldme spolen s autory Brownem a Yulem za pirozen, aby se studenti uili jazyk, kter je situan adekvtn, by jednoduch.
S rostouc znalost jazyka potom nsledn me vzrstat i rozmanitost vyjadovn zdvoilosti, spojen se stylistickou diferenciac (tj. studenti se mohou
seznamovat nejen s vrazy neutrlnmi, ale i formlnmi nebo naopak hovorovmi: mli by nap. vdt, kdy sta ct sorry a kdy je vhodnj ut
vrazu I really must apologize.
Pi rznch pleitostech jsme o tto problematice diskutovali s rodilmi
mluvmi a dospli k zvru, e rodil mluv jsou citlivj a mnohem mn
tolerantn ke strukturm, kter mohou znt jako nezdvoil, naopak jsou tolerantnj k chybm gramatickm.
Na zklad tchto fakt a s teoretickm zkladem uvedenm v tto prci
bychom v budoucnu rdi zpracovali soubor materil, kter by nai uitel
mohli vyuvat jako doplujc materil k uebnicm. Zkladem tohoto souboru by vak nemla bt pouze matrice frz a zdvoilostnch slov, chpan
jako statick kategorie. Soubor by ml pomoci uitelm i studentm zvyovat citlivost k vyjadovn zdvoilosti a jejch podob v odlinm kulturnm

169

kontextu, a lpe pochopit, e dleit je nejen to, o em se hovo, ale tak

jak spolu lid komunikuj.
V zvru je pedloen prce charakterizovna jako poten fze
dlouhodobjho vzkumu v oblasti jazykov zdvoilosti (v dal fzi bude
vzkum zamen na analzu dost, vyjadovn nesouhlasu (disagreement)
a pochval (compliments). Znovu jsou pipomenuty vdom nedostatky pedloen podoby (tj. zamen na jevy segmentln, dan analzou psanch
text, nutnost rozit jazykov materil apod.).
Cle, kter jsme si na potku kladli, tj.
pest a zpracovat dostupnou literaturu a vytvoit si tak teoretick rmec
pro dal prci
na konkrtnm jazykovm materilu a na zklad pracovnch hypotz
zpracovat strategie oslovovn a omluv nebyly vysok, ale vsledky
prce lze povaovat za relevantn fzi dlouhodobho vzkumu. V tom
spatujeme i pnos pedloen prce.

170

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177

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Chapter One
Tab. 1 Subcategorization of Politeness
Fig. 1 Rules of Pragmatic Competence
Chapter Two
Tab. 1

Forms of address

Tab. 2
Tab. 3
Tab. 4

English Addresses in Dyads

Survey of types and quantification Call 1
Call 10

Tab. 5
Tab. 6
Fig. 1

Call 9
Survey of solidarity/distance semantics in Show 1 (Calls 110)
Components of the semantic system and determinants of the text
activating them
Illustrative survey of pronominal honorifics
Paradigmatic axis of alternation rules in I1
Moderators reference to Caller
Possible strategies for doing FTAs

Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5

Chapter Three
Fig. 1 Speech Acts Bach and Harnishs approach
Fig. 2 The model of apology as a Speech act set
Fig. 3 Goffmans remedial work
Fig. 4 A three-place apology pattern (Coulmas)

179

Mgr. Silvie Vlkov, Ph.D.

Politeness as a communicative strategy

and language manifestation
(a cross-cultural perspective)
Ureno pro studenty magisterskho studia oboru anglick jazyk na PdF a FF,
postgraduln studium oboru AJ, pro tvrce uebnic a pekladatele
Vkonn redaktor: Mgr. Emilie Petkov
Odpovdn redaktorka: Jana Kreiselov
Technick redaktorka: RNDr. Helena Hladiov
Nvrh oblky
Vydala a vytiskla Univerzita Palackho v Olomouci
Kkovskho 8, 771 47 Olomouc
www.upol.cz/vup
e-mail: vup@upol.cz
Olomouc 2004
1. vydn
Edin ada Monografie
ISBN 80-244-0961-5